


Spacemon: Blueshift

by DisturbedShadow



Series: Spacemon - A Pokemon Tabletop Story [4]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Space, Artificial Intelligence, Character Death, Conspiracy, Dark, Death, Depression, F/F, Falling In Love, Feels, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Legendary Pokemon - Freeform, Lesbian Character, Love, Major Original Character(s), Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Mercenaries, Minor Character Death, Original Universe, Orphans, Outer Space, POV Female Character, POV Multiple, POV Original Character, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Plot Twists, Pokeball(s), Pokemon - Freeform, Pokemon Battle, Pokemon Death, Pokemon Fanfiction, Role-Playing Game, Romance, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Space Battles, Space Flight, Space Opera, Spaceships, Suicide, Tabletop RPG, Team, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Teamwork, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Teenagers, Trauma, space travel, tabletop role-playing game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2018-07-24 07:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 68,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7499412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisturbedShadow/pseuds/DisturbedShadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spacemon: Blueshift is a non-canon alternate universe Spacemon story. Spacemon is a story adaptation of a Pokemon tabletop RPG campaign played using the Pokemon Tabletop United (PTU) system! It follows a group of Pokemon trainers as they travel the Galaxy, working to stop a dark conspiracy and uncover the true origin of life. This particular story explores an alternate universe where one of the major characters has one key difference in their identity and how that difference alters the relationships between the main characters. It is highly recommended to read the original canon adventure before reading this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crash Landing

Alex’s small frame cast a long shadow across the ground in the light of Vandia’s perpetually setting sun as she ran across the plains toward Khirpai, the small city where she was born. It was just another boring day for the teenager, just like every day for the past year. It had been so long since that night on the roof; the night she poured her heart out only to have it crushed. Now Alex spent her days scouring the streets for scrap metal and Pokeball parts. She tried to remain focused on her mission to escape Vandia and find her father, but she was never able to forget Naomi.

 _Maybe today I’ll find something useful_ , the girl thought as she reached the farms on the outskirts of town. She vaulted a nearby fence, taking a shortcut across a cabbage field to get to her destination faster. Suddenly the ground exploded into giant dust clouds as a volley of laser fire came hurdling down from the sky.

“What the hell?” she asked aloud as she looked up towards the clouds. _A space battle! Here!?_ she thought, seeing bright flashes of light amongst the gray and purple masses. Although it wasn’t quite as exciting as what she had seen in the movies, this was still the most interesting thing to have happened to her in years!

As she watched with excitement in her eyes,  a ship broke through the atmosphere, tumbling and turning, upside down relative to the planet. It righted itself at the last moment, just before hitting the ground. It tore through the cabbage field and smashed through the fence, stopping just a few feet from the girl. A single word escaped her mouth as she stared in wonder at what she had just witnessed.

“Cool...”

After a few moments, three people emerged from the crashed ship. They slowly walked alongside their vessel, surveying the damage it sustained in the crash. As they neared the front of the ship, one of them spotted Alex standing there, staring in awe.

“Hey, who are you?” The young woman asked as she approached Alex.

“Who are _you?_ ” The girl responded. “You fell from the sky!”

Before the woman got the chance to respond, Alex spotted her companions approaching. The blue-haired teenaged girl in particular caught her attention. _Wow, she’s so pretty_ , Alex thought. She could feel her pulse quickening in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. _Quick, say something!_

“Why is your hair blue?” Alex asked the blue-haired girl. She received a quick glance in response, but the girl quickly turned away from her, remaining more interested in examining her damaged ship. _Well, that was a dumb thing to ask._  
  
“Have you never seen a ship before?” the young woman asked, seeming annoyed with Alex’s outburst.

“Not one that exploded and crashed in front of my face!” Alex answered.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t exactly planned,” the young woman responded.

Suddenly a man with spiky blond hair wearing nothing but a lab coat and a pair of pink boxers emerged from the ship. “Why… why isn’t he wearing any pants?” Alex asked. The man’s appearance was just so absurd. Looking at the others, she noticed that they didn’t really seem to care or notice. “No seriously, like, why isn’t he wearing pants?”

The young woman’s grey-green eyes narrowed as an annoyed expression formed on her face. “That’s not really any of your business.”

 _Ugh, she’s no fun_ , Alex thought. She looked back over at the girl with blue hair, who now seemed to be focused on the conversation. Alex’s interest was immediately captured by what appeared to be a glowing purple tattoo on her arm.  _Let’s try this again..._

“What’s up with your arm?” Alex asked, approaching the blue-haired teenager.“It’s all, like, glowy and shit.”

“It’s not really any of your business,” the young woman said again, sounding a bit more annoyed now. She stepped between Alex and her blue-haired crewmate.

“You almost crashed a ship into me!” Alex shouted, pointing a finger right in the young woman’s face. “Bullshit it’s not my business!”

“Well, we’d like to be going now if-”

“Going where? I don’t think you’re going anywhere with this piece of shit.”

“You said you never…”

“Never what?”

“Do _you_ have a ship?”

“ _Maybe_.”

“You’re just a kid. Just shut up.”

“C'mon guys, let’s just go to the city and fix our ship,” the blue-haired girl said to the others, trying to calm the tensions.

“No seriously, I have a ship,” Alex continued to insist. She thought that if she helped them, they might be able to get her off this planet. “Well, half a ship anyway,” she continued. “It crashed over there and I found it. The point is I have lots of scrap. I can help you.”

“I would really rather not trust this child,” the young woman said to her crewmates.

“Who are you calling a child!?” Alex demanded. “Blue over there doesn’t look any older than I am!”

“Didn’t you hear me say it’s none of your business?”

“What’s your problem? I’m trying to be nice here!”

“Oh, no one really knows,” the pantsless man answered.

“She’s always like this,” the dark haired man chimed in.

“So she was born with a stick up her ass?” Alex asked.

“Alright, that does it!” The young woman yelled angrily.

“You’re gonna regret saying that,” the blue-haired girl warned Alex.

Suddenly, a blast of energy struck Alex, sending her flying back into the side of the crashed ship. “Ow! What the fuck was that!?” the teenager screamed at her attacker, a pained tone in her voice. “Why did you do that to me!?” She lunged at the young woman, and tried to punch her in the face.

The woman stepped to the side, and Alex’s fist collided with her shoulder. She then reached for one of her Pokeballs. In response, Alex grabbed four of her own Pokeballs off her belt, two in each hand, and prepared to throw them.

“Guess what, I have a Pokeball too,” said the man with no pants.

“H, don’t get involved,” the blue-haired girl warned him. She then stepped between the two hot-headed girls and tried to break up the situation before it got any worse. With her glowing purple hand, she grabbed Alex by the arm.

Alex felt a dry wetness clamping down around her arm as the other girl made contact. _What the hell?_ Alex thought. The feeling was quite uncomfortable. Alex tried to squirm free as the blue-haired girl pulled her away.

Suddenly, the pantsless man ripped a piece of broken panelling off the ship and lifted it up in the air. “STOP IT! WE’RE BUSY AT THE MOMENT! OR I’LL HIT YOU WITH THIS!” he shouted angrily.

“She started it,” Alex jabbed at the fuming young woman as she ripped her arm out of the blue-haired girl’s grasp.

“GUYS, CAN WE JUST STOP!?” the blue-haired girl shouted at everyone.

“But I have this piece of side paneling, what am I going to do with it now?” the pantsless man asked.

“Go build another of your Goddamn augmentations or whatever,” the blue-haired girl told him.

“It’s useless now,” the man said, throwing the panel aside.

“Shouldn’t you go back to your parents or something?” the young woman asked Alex. She seemed to have calmed down a bit.

Alex tensed up at the mention of parents. _No, stay strong_ , Alex told herself. “What parents?” she asked, trying to sound tough.

“Uh… parents. Like normal kids have,” the young woman responded.

Despite her best efforts, Alex could feel the sadness welling up inside.“I… don’t have parents…” she said as her facial expression formed into a frown.

“Well that’s wonderful!” the pantsless man commented.

“Where do you live?” the young woman asked. Alex detected a hint of guilt in her voice.

“In a crashed ship,” Alex answered. “I told you that.”

“Look, we really don’t have time for this. We just want to get our ship fixed so we’re gonna go to the city and do that,” the young woman explained. She then turned and walked off toward Khirpai with H and Dmitri close behind.

 _Damn it, I need them to help me_ , Alex thought to herself. She watched them leave, then turned back to the blue-haired girl, then back to the others once more. She ran after them, hoping that she could convince them to help her.

* * *

Shandra sighed as she leaned up against the _Helix_. It had been quite an eventful day. She and her crewmates had come to this planet to find Gilgamesh and ended up crashing after the _Helix_ was attacked by a bunch of crazy people. Then that annoying girl showed up. _Speaking of which…_ she thought. Shandra looked around and noticed that the local girl seemed to have disappeared. She shrugged, then resumed checking the damage to the _Helix_.

It definitely wasn’t too bad of a crash, all things considered. The damage to the ship was mostly superficial. Whatever scrap material Morgan, Dmitri, and H found would definitely be enough to get the ship spaceworthy again.

“Hi!” Shandra suddenly heard a high-pitched voice shout behind her. She turned around to see the local girl standing there with an excited look on her face.

 _Not this again_ , Shandra thought to herself. She looked at the girl for a moment, and then back at the ship. She then turned and walked back onto the ship.

“Why are you here anyway?” the sound of the girl’s voice followed her inside. She turned to see the teenager walking behind her.

 _Ugh, this girl is annoying_ , Shandra thought as she navigated her way to what she hoped to make into a lab to study the Warp.

“Hey! I’m talkin’ to you! What are you doing here? Why is your friend such a jerk? What’s up with the guy with no pants? Are you even listening to me?” The girl’s incessant questions never seemed to end. When Shandra finally reached her lab, she shut the door in the girl’s face, then breathed a sigh of relief.  “Fine! I didn’t want to talk to you anyway!” she heard the girl yell through the door.

Shandra stood there for a moment, leaning up against the door and enjoying the silence. However, it only lasted briefly as she realized her mistake. _Crap, I can’t just let her wander around the ship._

She poked her head out of the room, confirming her suspicion; the girl was gone. Shandra darted out of the room, hoping to find the unsupervised stranger now roaming around the _Helix_.

* * *

“Lame. Boring. Amateurish,” Alex grumbled as she tossed Pokeballs aside. Wandering around the crashed ship, the girl had found her way to some sort of Pokeball workshop. Being an expert on the craft of making Pokeballs herself, the room had caught her attention. Unfortunately, the designs she found within weren’t living up to her standards.

Eventually, the blue-haired girl entered the room, out of breath. Alex got the impression that she has spent a great deal of time trying to locate her. “Okay, as much as I don’t want to answer your questions, I really don’t want you wandering around the ship,” she told Alex.

“But I wasn’t wandering. I was in here,” Alex pointed out.

“I wouldn’t touch some of those if I were you,” the blue-haired girl told Alex before she could say anything more. “H has… a problem…”

“Who’s H?”

“You know, the weird guy in the lab coat.”

“Oh, you mean the guy with no pants?”

“Yeah… Anyway, some of those are kind of dangerous.”

“Nah. These are kind of amateurish.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t know the half of it.”

 _Yes_ , Alex thinks. _I said something right._

“I know right?” the Sinai girl agreed. “What was he thinking? These aren’t hack-proof or zombie-proof!”

“Zombie-proof?” the blue-haired girl asked, sounding a bit weirded out.

“Yes,” Alex told her. “Y’know, for when you need to protect your Pokemon from the zombie Pokemon!” 

The blue-haired girl stared back with a blank expression, causing Alex’s face to flush red with embarrassment. _Damn it! I blew my chance. She probably thinks I’m a weirdo now._

The blue-haired girl sighed, then handed the girl a Pokeball. “Here. Open this.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Alex looked at the ball for a moment before chucking it at the wall. It exploded and string shot went everywhere.

“Boring! I could make that in my sleep.”

“That is one of the milder effects of these. You really shouldn’t be messing around with them.”

“Oh, I’ve made things far more dangerous than that before.”

“Like what?”

“Like this one.” Alex pulled a Pokeball of her own design out of her bag, then threw it at the wall. A blast of electricity bursted out, sending sparks flying everywhere.

Judging from the look on the girl’s face, she seemed impressed. Alex felt her heart flutter for a second. “I see your point, but still, you shouldn’t be messing around with these,” the girl told her, snapping her back to reality.

“But I do it all the time,” Alex explained.

“ _Really_ …” the blue-haired girl said, putting a hand on Alex’s shoulder. Alex felt herself blush once more at her touch. “We just met you and I’d rather not share our entire personal lives with you.”

Suddenly, they warped out of the room and appeared in a different one.

“Woah, what the fuck just happened!?” Alex shouted in surprise, stumbling back a bit.

“It’s a long story,” the girl said before walking out of the room.

“Wait! You need to tell me what that was!” Alex shouted as she followed her out and off the ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a series that was born out of an asinine comment I made on one of the chapters on one of the other sites where I upload Spacemon. I actually liked my idea so much that I decided to just mess around with the idea for fun without any plans of actually posting it. But here it is. I ended up making this a reward for the official Spacemon Facebook page reaching 20 likes. I’ll be posting these in between Profile entries to keep me refreshed and allow me to not get burnt out on that series.
> 
> So, the basic premise of Blueshift is a simple question: what if Shane had instead taken on a female form during the Sinai experiment that created him? This series will explore that idea by looking at how I feel things would’ve played out with this slight difference.
> 
> Why start at the beginning of Volume 2? Well, I feel like the plot up until this point would’ve been pretty much the same, and only the introduction of Alex into the mix is what causes things to divert, and not just because of my personal bias. The original comment that spawned this series was a joke about how if Shane had been a girl, then Alex would be crushing on her so hard when they first met, so yeah, this whole thing is basically an alternate universe ship given its own story. Don’t worry, there will still be a ton of cool differences asides from just romantic plotlines!
> 
> So, things of note… the name Shandra was actually a name Shane's player came up with in a comment thread somewhere. The name Shane is actually an acronym for Semi-Humanoid Artificial Neural Engine (as revealed in his origin story), so he came up with a new acronym for this, at the time, hypothetical ship timeline which stands for Semi-Humanoid Artificial Neural Development Research Automaton. I also wanted to try messing around with different perspectives, so I tried to write parts specifically from Alex’s and Shandra’s points of view to give a different feel from the original chapter. I basically just grabbed the bits that needed a bit of a redo and left out the stuff that stayed the same in this alternate timeline, so I’ll be assuming readers have read the original story beforehand. The opening of the original chapter really isn’t relevant so I chose to just start with Alex witnessing the crash. Here I did something fun and flipped the parts that were written from the Helix crew’s perspective in the original and put them into Alex’s. This was a good moment for me to show Alex’s crush begin to take shape. Just to make things flow better I decided to do a bit from Shandra’s perspective since she’s going to be one of the character’s I’m focusing on the most, plus it allowed me to cut out some parts that really didn’t need to be there. I also changed the tense from present to past. Present tense works really well for translating directly from tabletop interactions, but for the way I want to write this series past tense works a lot better.
> 
> Right now this is pretty close to the original chapter, but, over time, each entry will deviate a bit more. This was all pulled from Volume 2, Chapter 1 if you want to compare. I hope you enjoy this series!


	2. Stowaway

The faint orange light of Vandia’s Sunset Plains reflected off the _Helix_ in the distance as the crew made their way back to their crashed vessel. Over the course of the few hours they had been gone, HERB, the repair bot Morgan had built several weeks prior, had completed repairs to the ship. Now that they had a lead on where Gilgamesh might have gone next, the crew was ready to depart from the planet.

With an annoyed expression on her face, Shandra glanced back at the local girl who was still following them around. Shandra was thankful that the girl, who had introduced herself as Alex, had shown them where Gilgamesh had gone when he visited Vandia, but now she wished that she would leave them alone. Shandra assumed that Alex would leave once they got back to the ship, but it seemed the teenager had other ideas.

“I want to go with you,” Alex spoke up as the crew began to board the _Helix_.

Shandra let out a sigh as she turned back to face the girl. Before she got the chance to answer, Dmitri said exactly what she was thinking.

“I don’t think we should take her with us,” the Romanov spoke up.

“I don’t either,” Morgan agreed.

Alex looked back at them with a dejected expression on her face, but said nothing.

“Sorry, kid,” Shandra told her. “You’re not coming with us.” She then turned and followed her crewmates onto the ship.

Joining everyone on the bridge, Shandra plopped herself down in the pilot’s seat. She fired up the engines and initiated the takeoff sequence.

“You sure you got this?” Morgan asked Shandra, a hint of concern in her voice.

Shandra gave her crewmate a reassuring glance and cracked a slight smirk. “Well, now that we’re not being shot at, I think I can handle a takeoff.” She then returned her focus to the front viewport as the _Helix_ began to break through Vandia’s atmosphere.

“Alright,” Morgan responded. “But I think we should consider hiring a pilot, especially since we’re probably going to wind up in more dangerous situations.”

“I agree,” H pitched in. “I need someone who can fly straight while I’m working on my experiments.”

Shandra sighed. She had to admit that H was right; the crew needed someone who could fly the ship a lot better than she was able to. “Alright,” she agreed. “Wanna find a good planet to find a pilot?”

“On it,” Morgan answered. The young woman accessed the nav computer and began searching for a suitable world. It wasn’t long before she found something. “Here,” she announced, plugging the coordinates in. “Delphyne. It’s an urban Federation planet in Sector 1, so it’s pretty close. I bet we can find a good pilot there.”

“Sounds good,” Shandra responded. She fired up the warp drive and launched the _Helix_ into warp space. “It’s gonna be a few hours to the gate, at least,” she added, leaning back in her seat.

“Alright,” Morgan replied. “I might as well work on deciphering this star map in the meantime.”

“Good idea,” Shandra agreed.

“Let me know when we have something else interesting to do,” H spoke up. “Until then, I’ll be-” The cyborg suddenly cut himself off. “The Genesect!” he suddenly shouted, then he bolted out of the room.

“I’m gonna go see what that was all about,” Shandra told her remaining crewmates. She jumped up out of her seat and hurried after H, leaving Dmitri and Morgan on the bridge.

Descending the stairs, Shandra could hear the sound of H shouting. “What are you doing in there?!” she heard him shout as she drew near the cryo lab. Picking up her pace, Shandra rushed into the room to see Alex, the girl from Vandia, squished behind a cryotube that H was frantically trying to open.

“H, what are you doing?” Shandra asked her cybernetic crewmate. “She’s _behind_ the tube.”

“She’s in my cryotube!” H shouted back at her. “She needs to get out of the cryotube!”

Shandra sighed, then walked over to the cryotube. She reached behind it, then grabbed Alex by the arm and pulled the girl out. All the while Alex frantically tried to kick her in order to break free, but the girl was unable to land a blow. “Let go of me!” Alex shouted, obviously panicked.

“Oh,” H said, realizing his mistake.

Suddenly, Alex grabbed two Pokeballs off her belt with her free hand, and out popped an Umbreon and a Lampent. In surprise, Shandra released her grip on Alex. The stowaway quickly yanked her arm away and moved behind her Pokemon.

“No, no, no. Not in here. Not in here!” H shouted at the girl angrily. “Move! Out! Now! Any form of damage the Genesect endure… There’s a reason this door is locked!”

Alex started backing out of the room, keeping her Pokemon between herself and the cyborg as he advanced toward her. Shandra followed the pair at a distance. She had no idea how Alex had got on the ship, but she knew that she had to keep the situation from escalating.

As H and Shandra closed in on Alex, the Sinai girl backed down the hallway, eventually ending up back in the cargo hold. Now with plenty of space, Shandra activated her powers and warped behind the stowaway. She then grabbed a Pokeball and released her Klefki.

“What the hell?” Alex shouted in surprise. Shandra could tell that the girl was in distress. Alex quickly positioned herself between her Pokemon, putting her Lampent between herself and Shandra and leaving her Umbreon to face H, who had released his Helioptile.

“Lumiera, Flame Burst!” Alex shouted, pointing at Shandra’s Pokemon. The Lampent launched a small jet of blue flame at the Klefki, taking him down in one hit. “Hah,” Alex said, a smirk appearing on her face.

Just then Dmitri ran into the room and threw out a Pokeball. His Gyarados bursted out, the Pokemon’s long form wrapping around some nearby crates.

“Go #6, use your Thundershock on the Lampent!” H commanded his Helioptile. The Pokemon noded and charged up some electricity, then blasted it at Alex’s ghostly Pokemon.

“Ebony, use Faint Attack!” Alex commanded her Umbreon in response. The Pokemon charged into the Helioptile, bashing him into the side of a nearby crate.

Meanwhile, H began charging up some electricity in his arm to power up his next attack. Suddenly, Alex ran up to the cyborg and whispered something into his ear. Whatever she said caused a deeply unsettled look to appear on H’s face. The cyborg grappled his feet to the ceiling and rapidly pulled himself up to escape.

“Quick, now use Flame Burst, Lumiera!” Alex commanded her Lampent. The ghostly lamp Pokemon spit out another lick of flame, this time at the Helioptile. Just as the Pokemon stumbled back to his feet, the fiery attack collided with him and took him out of commission. A smug look crossed Alex’s face, but it was quickly wiped away when Shandra released her Clefable.

“R.A.G.E., use Dazzling Gleam on that Umbreon!” Shandra commanded her Pokemon. A brilliant blast of light radiated out from the Clefable and collided with Alex’s Pokemon, doing a hefty number on it.

“Ness, Waterfall,” Dmitri then ordered his Gyarados. The massive sea beast reared his head up in the air, then crashed his weight down on Alex’s Lampent, knocking the Pokemon out of the fight.

“No!” Alex yelled, now sounding very distraught. “Ebony, Faint Attack that monster!” She shouted, pointing at the massive Gyarados in front of her. The Umbreon ran at the Gyarados and lept into the air, crashing into the side of its head, knocking the giant Pokemon to the ground. The Gyarados picked itself back up and let out a thunderously angry roar. It was clearly very pissed off.

However, H was even more pissed off. Rage burned in his eyes as he sent a blast of electricity down from the ceiling, zapping Alex. The girl’s body spasmed as waves of electricity flowed through her body. She fell to her knees, looking rather shaken from the attack.

_Crap, I need to end this fast_ , Shandra thought. As much of an inconvenience it was that Alex had stowed away on the Helix, Shandra didn’t want the girl to come to any harm. It was clear to her that H could seriously injure Alex if the battle didn’t end soon. “R.A.G.E., use Sing!” she commanded her Clefable. The Pokemon hummed a soothing melody that put Alex’s Umbreon to sleep. Defeated, the girl recalled her Pokemon. “How did I lose?” she muttered.

With the battle won, Shandra quickly assessed the situation. H, who was still hanging from the ceiling, seemed to be charging up for another attack. He appeared to still be quite angry. “Dmitri, call Morgan down here,” she told her much more reasonable crewmate as she moved to position herself between H and Alex. “H, calm down!” she shouted at the cyborg. “The battle is over!”

It seemed to work, as the cyborg dropped himself back down from the ceiling. Thinking the situation resolved, Shandra turned back to Alex. “Are you alright?” she asked as she pulled the girl to her feet. Alex looked at Shandra for a moment, but before she got the chance to say anything, Morgan stepped into the room. “How did _she_ get in here!?” the young woman shouted, clearly upset to see that Alex was on the ship.

Shandra turned to explain the situation, but before she could get the words out, H interrupted her. “Do not know,” the cyborg said, his voice still full of rage as he began charging up once more. “But she will _not_ be here much longer!”

“H. Please don’t do that,” Morgan told H, trying to get him to calm down..

“She’ll just be unconscious. She will feel nothing when **jettisoned into space**.”

Shandra saw a look of horror appear on Alex’s face at the cyborg’s words. The girl began to back away as she pulled out another Pokeball.

“H, it’s wrong to kill people no matter how much we may hate them,” Morgan said sternly.

“But she broke into our stuff,” H retorted. “And we killed the people who shot at us earlier. We’ve been killing a lot. It’s what we do whether we accept it or not. Now let’s knock her unconscious! I will not have my perfection disturbed!”

Fearing for Alex’s safety, Shandra teleported herself between H and Alex and stared the cyborg right in the eye. “No,” she told him.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Stop it, H,” Morgan told the cyborg coldly, sending out her Pikachu.

“As much as we wouldn’t like her on board,” Shandra continued. “She is now so… unfortunately, she’s staying.”

“And she will soon be off,” H fired back.

“You remember how well that worked with me, don’t you?” She asked in return. She recalled the way H had tried to launch her into space when they had first met several months ago, and found herself feeling even more sympathetic toward Alex.

“Well yes, but you’re my rival and I refuse to have multiple rivals unless something else changes, but at the moment I only have one rival.” And with that, the cyborg grappled back up to the ceiling and charged up another blast of electricity. Seeing this, Alex turned and ran at full speed away from the cyborg, but it was not enough.

Shandra winced at the sound of the excruciatingly pained scream of anguish that escaped Alex’s mouth as the lightning struck the girl in the back.

“No!” Morgan yelled as Alex’s unconscious body collapsed on the ground. “Jean, Volt Tackle now!” Her Pikachu dashed across the floor, then lept into the air. The Pokemon slammed into H and unleashed his stored electricity, causing the cyborg’s numerous cybernetic augmentations to overload and shut down. With his magnetic feet shut down, H fell from the ceiling and landed right on his head, knocking him unconscious.

“Shandra, Dmitri, restrain him,” Morgan quickly instructed her crewmates. “I’ll take her to the medbay.”

While Morgan quickly rushed Alex off to the medbay, Shandra and Dmitri carried H’s unconscious body to his lab. Shandra kept an eye on the cyborg while her Romanov crewmate grabbed some cable and tied him to a support pole. 

It was not a moment too soon, because as soon as Dmitri had finished securing the cable in place, H began to come to. “Where did she go?” the cyborg asked angrily.

“None of your business,” Shandra answered coldly. She was quite angry herself because of his actions.

“Of course it’s my business,” H responded. “She messed with my business, so I will mess with her business.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Shandra told the cyborg. With that, she turned and stormed out of the lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So over halfway through writing this one I realized it didn’t really need to be here considering that it’s just a retelling of Volume 2, Chapter 3 from a different perspective, but I figured I might as well finish it since it was already almost done. I did include a few bits that are probably also canon to actual Spacemon, like the conversation the crew had on the bridge while Alex was sneaking around the Helix. I think overall the chapter will at least make the early parts of Blueshift flow better even if it isn’t strictly necessary to include it. From here things are going to really start deviating from the canon universe so stay tuned for that!


	3. Convergence

All was calm aboard the _Helix_ as the ship flew through warp space. Shandra sat in the the co-pilot’s seat on the bridge, gazing out into the swirling masses of warp energy. Minerva, the new pilot the crew had hired on Delphyne, didn’t seem much of one for conversation, but Shandra didn’t really mind. After the excitement of the past few days, she was glad that things had quieted down.

Since leaving Vandia, it had been one thing after another. Finding Alex stowed away on the ship felt like such an insignificant complication compared to the crew’s recent problems. In light of discovering the girl aboard the _Helix_ , the crew had actually agreed to let Alex stay on the ship; she had nowhere else to go, after all. Surprisingly, even H had been convinced to allow her to stay.

In fact, Shandra was starting to warm up to Alex. She had proven herself to be quite resourceful in the few days Shandra had known her. The girl had a strong understanding of technology that rivaled that of H, Morgan, and even her own, and she could do things with Pokeballs that Shandra didn’t even think possible. The thing that impressed Shandra the most, however, was how Alex had captured that massive Pokemon on Messina like it was nothing.

Shandra had no doubt that Alex would be a valuable addition to the crew, especially if they were going to keep winding up in these dangerous situations. Even so, Shandra, Dmitri, H, and Alex together had still barely been a match for Heilovic. They had barely escaped from the Supremacist captain, and that was only thanks to Morgan.

On that thought, Shandra realized that she had not seen Morgan for several hours. _That’s odd_ , she thought. It was unlike Morgan to not be around, so Shandra felt worried that something was wrong. Shandra felt a strong connection to Morgan that she didn’t feel with her other crewmates, so she needed to make sure that she was okay.

Shandra hopped up from her seat on the bridge and set off to find Morgan. She visited all of Morgan’s usual spots and was surprised not to find her in any of them. That just left Morgan’s room, so she made her way back to the living quarters. Finding Morgan’s door closed, Shandra knocked, but she heard no response.

Given that Morgan wasn’t anywhere else on the ship, it was safe to assume that this was the only other place she could be. Noticing that the door was unlocked, Shandra opened it and stepped into the room.

Inside, Shandra was greeted by the sight of Morgan lying on her bed facing the wall, her back to the door. “Morgan are you okay?” she asked. It was pretty easy to tell that she wasn’t okay, but Shandra wanted to let her know that she was there.

Morgan gave no response. She appeared to be attempting to pretend that she was sleeping, but it was quite obvious to Shandra that she was wide awake.

“Morgan, I know you’re awake.”

Silence.

Shandra crept closer and kneeled down by Morgan’s bedside. “You don’t have to be afraid of… whatever it is that you’re afraid of,” she said reassuringly.

“But…” Morgan said, still staring at the wall. “What if I’m afraid of… me? I killed all those people… And the ones who didn’t die… They’re ruined...”

“They were trying to do the same to us,” Shandra told her. “It was self-defense.”

“Not _them_ ,” Morgan responded. “Only the captain. But I couldn’t… because _you_ were on that ship.”

“I was trying to get H off of that ship,” Shandra told her.

“Why does something like that gate hack even exist?” Morgan continued, ignoring her comment. “How could I do something like that? It felt _good_ … when I watched the ship burn.”

“I guess power kinda gets to your head after a while… But, seriously, are you okay?”

“I’ll be okay… Please… just tell everyone I was asleep.”

“Alright,” Shandra agreed, placing her hand on Morgan’s shoulder reassuringly. She empathized with the pain this memory must have been giving Morgan. “I did want to let you know since you weren’t on the bridge,” she continued. “But we crossed paths with Arlon.”

“I see… What did he say?”

“He found out more information on Armstrong. He wants us to prevent him from being captured or killed by Mr. Silver’s men.”

“I’m guessing this is urgent then.”

“Yeah… We’re actually headed into Genevan space right now to try and find him.”

“Genevan space…? Where?”

“Parisia. Armstrong is giving a talk there on Friday.”

“I _can’t_ go there.”

“You… don’t have to… You can stay on the ship if you want.”

“As long as I can stay here, that’s fine. I can’t help you.”

“Okay.” Shandra sensed that Morgan needed some more alone time, so she got up and left the room.

As she made her way down the hallway, Shandra noticed Alex stumbling around aimlessly, seemingly a bit tipsy from the sheer amount of time that the ship had been in warp space recently. “Hey… are you okay?” Shandra asked as she approached the girl. “Is the Warp a bit too much? It’s always rough for first timers.”

“Huh?” Alex asked. She was clearly a bit delirious.

“I think you should go sit down,” Shandra told her. “You’re looking a bit… wobbly.”

“I’m not wobbly… _You’re_ wobbly,” Alex responded as she stumbled forward.

It looked like the girl was about to fall over, so Shandra quickly reached out and grabbed her. Alex giggled as she fell into Shandra. “You’re pretty,” she said.

“Uh... thanks,” Shandra responded. It was pretty clear that Alex was out of it, but she still didn’t really know how to respond. “Uh, here,” she continued, attempting to lead the girl down the hall. “Why don’t we go sit down somewhere?”

“Okay…” Alex said breathily. “I’m gonna stop standing up now.” Suddenly, the girl’s knees gave out and she slumped against the wall, pulling Shandra down on top of her.

Shandra’s face was so close to Alex’s that she could feel the girl’s breath on her. “Hi…” Alex breathed out as her cheeks flushed red. Before Shandra got the chance to move, the Sinai girl planted a soft kiss right on her lips.

Shandra quickly pulled away. “Woah there, take it easy,” she told Alex. She didn’t really know what to make of the situation. “Look, uh, just… stay here until we get out of warp space,” she said before getting up and leaving. She needed to make some sense of what had just happened.

* * *

Shandra closed the door as she entered her barren warp lab, looking for some way to isolate herself from the crazy that happened to inhabit the rest of the ship. It could hardly even be called a warp lab yet; at times the workshop seemed quite literally like a void of empty space. However, the miniature warp drive she had recently purchased was unpacked in the center of the room, so Shandra gathered some tools, sat down, and got to work installing it. 

And yet her mind kept drifting back to a few days ago— that moment in the hallway. That sort of thing had never happened before, and yet it wasn’t _entirely_ unwarranted… was it? She mulled it over, so engrossed in thought that she barely noticed a knocking at the door some time later. She leaned over and pressed a button on a nearby remote to unlock and open the door. H wasn’t exactly the kind of person who cared about personal space, and Shandra didn’t exactly feel comfortable with him snooping around. Fortunately, as the doors opened, Alex popped her head in.

“Uh… hey, Blue?” Alex asked, somewhat shyly. “Inspector Gizmo kicked me out of his Pokeball workshop, so I was wondering if I could… um… work on some stuff here?”

“Feel free,” Shandra told her as she tossed a few of the loose Pokeballs littering the floor in Alex’s direction. “As a matter of fact, I was just trying to figure out how to rig this drive to work when not attached to a ship. I could use someone to talk to.”

Alex caught the Pokeballs and looked them over. “I, uh, could zombie-proof these for you if you want, Blue,” she said as she settled into a spot on the edge of the room. “I haven’t tested it yet but I’m sure it’ll work.”

Shandra chuckled a bit, recalling Alex’s antics when they first met. “You know zombies don’t exist, right?”

“That’s what they _want_ you to think.”

“Who? The _zombies?_ ” 

“Well, duh, who else?”

Shandra shrugged this off as she continued to work. Purple sparks of warp energy occasionally floated up from the drive, only to fizzle out after a few seconds. “There must be some sort of safety protocol that prevents it from staying active for extended periods of time when isolated,” she said, to nobody in particular.

There was a brief moment of silence as the two continued to work on their projects, but eventually Alex broke it. “So, uh... What’s up with your magic tattoo?” she asked. “Is it always super glowy like that?”

“Didn’t we like just tell you about that?” Shandra asked, briefly looking at her arm. Sure enough, Giratina’s mark was convulsing and emitting a soft purple glow, at least more than it normally did. “Oh. It happens occasionally. I’ve more than gotten used to it by now.” 

Shandra looked up and was surprised to see Alex right next to her, reaching out to poke her marked arm. Instinctively, she backed away from the girl. “Could you not?”

“Oh… uh, sorry,” Alex said, dejected. “It’s just… like, really cool, y’know?”

“Well, I guess it is pretty cool, but still. Personal space much?”

Silence.

“You know, the longer you have something cool and special, the less you notice it,” Shandra said after a while. “Like your skill with Pokeballs.”

“I’ve been working with Pokeballs for years; it’s… really not that big a deal. Not like _that_ , anyway,” Alex mumbled, motioning again to the purple markings.

“My point exactly,” Shandra said, smiling. “You’re blushing, by the way.” Her comment only made the girl blush even more.

“Listen…” Alex finally said after several moments. “I… I, uh, wanted to apologize for the other day.”

“Oh,” Shandra said. “It’s alright. As I said, everyone’s first time in warp space is a bit rough.” _It’s not like it was **bad** or anything, it’s just…  
_  
Alex’s face lit up as she grinned and teased, “Now look who’s blushing!”

Silence ensued as Shandra quite avidly ignored the girl’s remark, instead attempting to focus once again on fiddling with the warp drive— actions that yielded little more than sparks and smoke. “No, that doesn’t work either, apparently,” She mumbled to herself as she grew even more frustrated with the non-functioning machine.

“Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?” Alex joked somewhat nervously.

While Shandra doubted Alex knew much about warp drives, she took the girl’s suggestion rather seriously. She quickly looked over the device and its components, and realized that she had neglected to connect it to any form of power to begin with. “That would do it,” she said with a sigh as she plugged it into the ship’s power grid. The warp drive flared with power, creating a small ball of warp within that bathes the room in a deep purple glow. A searing pain ran up Shandra’s arm as her mark began to glow almost as brightly, pulsating rapidly as if reacting to the sphere’s energy.

“Ha!” Alex shouted triumphantly. “I knew that would work.” The girl’s glee was cut short as she turned to face Shandra, and saw her curled up on the floor wincing in pain. “Hey, are you okay?”

Shandra barely managed to utter the response “What does it look like?” in a very pointed manner. _NO I AM NOT OKAY THIS FUCKING HURTS GET ME MEDICAL ATTENTION._

Hesitating briefly, Alex ran to the intercom by the door and screamed “Somebody help! Blue needs a medic!”

It was only a few moments before Morgan came running into the room with MARIA, the ship’s medical bot, in tow. “What’s going on?!” Morgan shouted as she tried to assess the situation. Before anyone got the chance to answer, Morgan’s eyes locked with the sphere of exposed warp energy and she collapsed onto the floor as well, in what looked like a trance of sorts.

Alex frantically looked back and forth between her crewmates, unsure of what to do. “WHAT THE _FUCK_ IS GOING ON HERE?!” she cried, exasperated.

Shandra flailed about for the drive’s power switch, but it was too far out of reach. Alex quickly ran over and promptly shut it off. Suddenly, everything went quiet. Shandra lied still on the floor, breathing heavily.

“I? What? Shandra!” Morgan suddenly cried out, seeming to have regained her senses. Still reeling from the shock, she sat upright. She looked around the room with a dazed expression on her face. “What… was that?” she muttered to herself.

“I’m fine, I think. I’ll put this thing back into a more stable setup later, but right now…” Shandra trailed off as she tried to get up, wincing at the pain still emanating from the mark. She slumped back down. “I’m just gonna rest here a bit.”

“MARIA?” Morgan called. “Would you kindly diagnose Shandra’s condition and report?” The bot whirred, navigating across the room to begin diagnostics.

Suddenly, H burst into the room, his lab coat billowing majestically behind him. “What’s going on here?” the cyborg demanded. “Why has MARIA been called?”

“The warp drive…” Shandra explained. “It… interacted with the mark and…” She lifted her right arm slightly, the mark still glowing faintly and sparking off warp energy. MARIA took the opportunity to scan it for signs of damage.

“Well I suppose you have as much right to fiddle with it as anyone,” H replied. “Go ahead.”

“Can someone please explain what the hell just happened?” Alex asked, still clearly overwhelmed by the situation. She ran over to where Shandra lied and crouched down next to her.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, staring at the shades of blue and purple pulsating along Shandra’s arm. This time, the girl resisted the urge to poke it.

“Yeah… yeah, it does… yeah…”

“You’ve got to get ahold of that thing already,” H told Shandra. “Learn to control it. I’m learning to control what I can do, you need to learn to control what you can do, otherwise you can’t be a fit rival for me. You need to keep improving otherwise I’ll leave you behind and you’ll be worthless.”

“NO MEDICAL CONDITIONS DETECTED.” MARIA announced. “PATIENT IS HEALTHY.”

“H, at least your issues make scientific sense,” Morgan snapped at him, annoyed by MARIA’s lack of a diagnosis.

“Ah, but the Warp does make scientific sense,” H declared.

“Oh, really?” Shandra asked sarcastically.

“Yes.”

“I’d like to see you try to explain it then,” Morgan challenged the cyborg.

“I would if I didn’t have other things that are more important to discover. All I can do is wish you best of luck.”

“Honestly, if MARIA can’t find anything wrong I think the best thing would be for me to rest a bit,” said Shandra, turning back to Morgan. “And hope that the pain goes away…”

“I never needed rest!” H interjected.

“Shut up H,” Shandra snapped back at him.

“Very well,” H replied before exiting the room, off to his lab once again.

MARIA began administering pain medication and Shandra felt the pain numb away. The sparks of energy were still flying out from the mark, but she no longer felt the burning, freezing ache. She sat up and began putting the warp drive back together.

* * *

Alex lay on her bed, curled up in a ball. The tears had long since stopped, but the girl was still grief-stricken. _It’s all my fault_. The thought kept repeating in her head over and over.

How could they ever forgive her? Not only had Alex put her new friends in terrible danger, but she had gotten Morgan’s Croconaw and Shandra’s Inkay killed. She could still see the Pokemon as the life was squeezed out of them by those monsters in the Mirrored Temple.

In the short time she had known the them, Alex had grown quite close to the two girls. Morgan was like the sister Alex never had, and Shandra had filled her with feelings she hadn’t felt since her days with Naomi back on Vandia. _What will they think of me now?_ Alex thought. Not only was she devastated over the death of their Pokemon, but she feared that her new friends would hate her forever.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Alex remained silent as the dread overtook her. _They’ve come to throw me out, I know it_ , the girl thought.

Another knock sounded. “Alex?” she heard Morgan call out. Alex curled herself up tighter as the door slid open.

“Alex, are you okay?” Alex heard Shandra ask. There was a shuffling sound, then Alex felt Shandra’s hand on her arm.

_They’re not throwing me out?_ Alex thought. The girl was so sure they were angry with her, but they sounded worried instead. _Maybe they aren’t angry after all_. She pulled her arms away from her face and looked around. Shandra was crouched down by the bed, giving Alex a look of concern. Morgan stood a bit behind her with a similar expression on her face.

“It’s all my fault…” Alex finally said. Her voice cracked from all the crying she had done.

“What’s all your fault?” Morgan asked.

“It’s my fault your Pokemon died.”

“No, it’s not,” Shandra told the girl, softly rubbing her arm to comfort her.

“We were only there because of me… I was the reason we were there, I was the reason they died. I put everyone in danger chasing my stupid dream.”

“We wanted to be there too,” Morgan told her. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have gone.”

“But if I hadn’t snuck onto your ship, they would still be alive…”

“Even before you boarded our ship, we had dangerous experiences and some of our Pokemon have died,” Shandra told her. “It’s a horrible thing, but it happens sometimes. You being on the ship didn’t change that.”

“You mean my Pokemon might die too?” Alex asked frantically. The very idea terrified her.

“Well, they’re just Pokemon,” Morgan responded.

“No! They’re _not_ just Pokemon!” Alex cried out. “They’re my friends! They’re my family! They’re all I have left…”

“But you’re traveling with us now,” Shandra said, pulling the girl into a hug. “That means we’re kind of like your family. And we have to stick together.”

Alex recoiled slightly. “But you’re just gonna leave me like everybody else,” she said. She couldn’t deny her feelings for Shandra, but she was too afraid of being abandoned again. 

“We would never leave you,” Shandra said, squeezing the girl a bit tighter.

As much as she wanted too, Alex refused to believe it. All her life, everyone she knew eventually left her in the end. “You tried to do it before…” she said. “Everyone always does…” 

“Well, to be fair, you weren’t a part of the crew yet,” Morgan pointed out.

“And now you are,” Shandra added. “And we’re not gonna give up on you.”

With her friends’ repeated assurances, Alex came to realize that they aren’t going to leave her. For the first time in her life, the girl began to feel a sense of belonging. Alex threw her arms around Shandra, finally returning her hug as mixed tears of joy and sadness fell from her eyes.

“So, are you gonna be okay now?” Shandra asked after a few moments.

“I think so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this chapter, I took the logical step and brought in Shane's player to co-write since Shane/Shandra is his character after all. I’m glad I did, because he helped push the story more toward deviating from the canon storyline more than it had been. I think it was something that was really needed, as I was playing too cautiously with trying to keep it close to the original canon. I am so glad with how this chapter turned out.
> 
> So, what I did with this chapter was pick three different scenes from three different chapters which I felt were important moments for Shane and Alex in the original story and changed them to show the connection between Shandra and Alex forming.
> 
> For the first scene, taken from Volume 2, Chapter 9, I added Shandra’s internal feelings as she thought over Alex’s actions with the crew to show readers where we are in the story, and to also show how the Shorgan ship still exists. Morgan's player had stated that the F/F version of Shorgan still checks out, and Shane's player and I agreed that Shane/Shandra, being an AI, probably doesn’t really experience romantic attractions the same way in the biological sense and therefore doesn’t have a gender preference. The moment right after Shandra’s interaction with Morgan was where I started diverting things though. It was a funny little moment in the original, but as I was writing this, it occurred to me that Alex being essentially drunk on the Warp would lower her inhibitions and make her all flirty. It wasn’t originally intended, but I love how well it works.
> 
> The next scene was pulled from Volume 2, Chapter 12, and Shane's player and I rewrote it from the ground up to really change things. Originally, it was an interaction that was between Morgan and Shane (in fact, it was the scene in which Morgan and Shane's players revealed the Shorgan ship to everyone), but we made it an interaction between Alex and Shandra instead. I absolutely love the way it turned out. We did have to bring Morgan in, however, since her vision is plot-important and would be consistent across continuities.
> 
> Lastly, we have a scene from Volume 2, Chapter 14. This was an important moment for Alex in the original universe, so it needed to stay. The key difference here was that Shandra took the lead on comforting Morgan as opposed to the other way around. Additionally, writing it from Alex’s perspective gave the scene a different feel from the original and helped show Alex’s growing attraction to Shandra.
> 
> Overall, I’m super happy with how this chapter turned out. Things are only going to keep diverting from here and it will be interesting to see how things develop.


	4. Turning Point

Silence filled the _Helix_ as the ship sat stationary on the smooth, shiny surface of the small planetoid the Mirrored Temple had pointed the crew towards. Dmitri, Morgan, and Alex were still off exploring the world while the rest of the crew remained on the _Helix_. Shandra would have liked to be out there with them, but in her current condition, that was out of the question. The pain that whatever it was that was on this planet was causing her had subsided thanks to the medication, but she was not in coherent mental state thanks, of course, to the medication.

So, instead, she was laying in the medbay, silently amusing herself in what little ways she could, between MARIA’s continued administrations of medication. _You’re a good little robot, Marie, you know that?_ MARIA gave no response, as Shandra hadn’t actually said this aloud. _Did you know I’m a robot too? Well, sort of_. MARIA wasn’t much for conversation. The silence was as maddening as the company. _It’s a long story._

Suddenly, Shandra felt the ship move. _That’s not supposed to happen… right?_ She sat up in the bed and gazed out the viewport to see the metallic ground drifting away; the _Helix_ was taking off. _Yep, that’s supposed to happen, but that means…_ Shandra climbed out of bed as the ship broke free of the atmosphere and jumped back into warp space. Clearly her crewmates had returned.

Shandra stepped out into the hallway and began haphazardly making her way to the bridge to see what the others had found. While the effects of the pain medication had begun to wear off, she still remained pretty loopy. _Ow! Stupid wall_. Loss of motor skills didn’t really help, and Shandra kept wobbling around and bumping into walls on her way.

 _Woah_ , Shandra thought as she walked onto the bridge, her attention immediately captured by Dmitri’s hair, which was now a ghostly shade of white. “Your hair is shiny,” she said to her Romanov crewmate. Dmitri appeared to be ignoring her, so Shandra turned her attention to Morgan. Her gaze drifted down to Morgan’s arms, where she saw something strange: some sort of red stuff where her right hand was tightly gripping her other arm. “What’s that on your arm?” she asked, tilting her head and pointing at the young woman. _Is it jam? I’m hungry. Am I hungry? Do I even eat?_ In her current mental state, Shandra couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing.

There were several moments of silence, then Alex gasped. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding!” the girl cried. _Oh, right. Blood’s a thing that exists. Silly me._ Morgan said nothing, then turned and walked out of the room.

“Bye, bye, see you later…” Shandra said, just before collapsing to the floor. _Wheee_. Between the pain and the medication, she no longer had the strength to stand. “Oh, hey, look, I’m on the floor now,” she said, as she laid down and began to play with imaginary things and the occasional spark of warp. She truly looked like the epitome of insanity. Her crewmates probably seemed a bit confused or concerned, but Shandra didn’t bother looking.

There were several more minutes of silence, then the sound of Morgan screaming echoed into the room from the lower deck. As her brain processed the sound, Shandra suddenly sat up, snapping out of her delirium as a feeling of clarity overcame her mind. Something was wrong with Morgan and she needed to be there for her.

Quickly, Shandra leapt to her feet and tried to rush off the bridge. However, she still lacked the energy and fell down once again, face-planting into the floor a few feet from where she just was. She rolled over onto her back, then teleported herself to Morgan’s workshop as she landed, appearing to disappear through the floor of the Bridge. “Are you okay?” she asked Morgan without even attempting to get up. “I heard screaming.”

Looking up, Shandra could see Morgan staring down at down at her with a look of pure hatred that she had never before. “GET OUT!” she screamed at Shandra with furious rage.

As if by reflex, Shandra teleported herself outside the door, completely shocked. She sat down against the door and leaned her head back against it. It thudded against the cold metal as Shandra tried to make sense of what had just happened. _Why?_ But try as she might, she kept drawing a blank, only able to focus on that one question: **_Why?_**

Suddenly, a loud banging sound pulled Shandra out of her own thoughts. It sounded as if Morgan was punching the wall repeatedly on the other side of the door. “What do you want!?” the young woman shouted through the door at Shandra. “Leave me alone!”

“This isn’t like you,” Shandra replied.

“How would you know!? You don’t even know me! I _hate_ you! I hate everyone on this ship!”

The words stung more painfully than the residual pain meds could handle. Shandra knew something was wrong, even if Morgan wasn’t admitting it. She was usually angry, but in a more controlled way that ended up making her seem quiet and reserved. This was anger, but it was nothing like that. “I’ve known you long enough to know what you used to be like.”

“It doesn’t matter what I used to be like. We shouldn’t have come here.”

“What did you guys even find there?” Shandra wondered aloud, with some confusing mix of irritation and concern in her voice.

“There was an evil Pokemon there…” Shandra heard Alex answer. She looked up to see the Sinai girl approaching.

Shandra sighed. “Yeah, that much I gathered…”

“Alex…?” Morgan’s voice sounded through the door. “Oh God, I didn’t mean that! I don’t hate you.”

“What?” Alex asked. Shandra could hear how confused she sounded. “Why would you… hate me…?”

“I don’t, it’s just…” Morgan trailed off.

Shandra heard Morgan walk away from the door, then the faint sound of her crying. She stood up, then tried to open the door, but it was locked. Alex reached for the console, presumably to try hacking the lock, but Shandra placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder before she even touched it. In an instant, she blipped both of them into the room.

Shandra walked over to Morgan and tried to hug her, but she shrunk away from her touch. “Just leave me alone,” Morgan cried. For the first time in a very long time, Shandra felt so alone, despite being in the company of her friends. _No…_ The room seemed to get noticeably colder and darker as the reality set in. _Please, no…_ This was a feeling she was all too familiar with, and yet it was so new that it seemed alien. _Not again_.

But then Shandra felt a warmth pressing up against her. She looked up to see Alex embracing both her and Morgan, pulling them in close. “You said we were family,” the girl said. “And families are there for each other… no matter what.” Shandra understood what Alex was trying to do, but the damage was already done. She broke away, a sad and dejected expression on her face, and quietly exited the room.

Outside, Shandra walked over to the opposing wall of the corridor, leaning against it before collapsing to sit on the floor. Shandra wasn’t typically the emotional crying type, but this was different. _Now I’m the one needing a hug_ , she thought with a slight, sad chuckle as tears started to glide down her cheeks.

She reached for her belt and grabbed the first Pokeball her hand made contact with. She sent out its resident, which happened to be her recently acquired Amaura. _Oh, thank God it’s a cute one_ , she thought as she wrapped her arms around it, pulling it into a tight hug. It was cold, but Shandra didn’t care. Her heart, somehow, felt colder and heavier by far. Her tears froze into little droplets on the Amaura’s hide, and the dinosaur curled its head around Shandra’s, seeming to return her embrace.

Suddenly, Shandra was roused from her sobbing by the sound of the door sliding open. She looked up to see Alex walking out into the hallway. As the door slid shut behind her, Alex walked over to Shandra and plopped herself down next to her.

“It’ll be okay,” the girl said, placing her hand on her arm. Shandra felt warmth seeping back into her through Alex’s fingers.

“Will it?” Shandra asked. _How can things possibly get better?_

Alex paused for a moment, a contemplative expression appearing on her face. “Of course it will,” the girl said. “There is no darkness without light.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shandra asked. 

“It means… It means that even though things may seem bad, that’s only because you have some moments of good to compare it to. If you were happy once, then there’s no reason why you can’t be happy again someday.”

Shandra looked at the girl, who appeared to be staring off into the distance. “I take it you have some experience with this sort of thing?” She asked.

“I…” Alex trailed off. It appeared to Shandra like the girl was recalling a painful memory. “Yeah… There was someone that I loved, but… she didn’t feel the same way about me. I just wanted us to be together so bad, but all I did was push her away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Alex told her. The girl’s hand moved down along Shandra’s arm until it reached her own. “Just… I know what you’re going through, okay? You’re not alone.” 

“Thanks,” Shandra replied with a slight sigh. “It may not seem like it, but… that really means a lot.” 

Alex closed her fingers around Shandra’s hand and smiled. “Don’t mention it. I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”

At that moment, Shandra felt something stirring within her. As she gazed into Alex’s big brown eyes, she realized how much she actually cared for the girl. For so long, Shandra had felt close to Morgan, but only rarely did the feeling seem mutual; now the two felt more distant than ever. Yet, ever since Alex had joined the crew, Shandra had felt… _something_ about the girl, who now sat beside her. It was clear that the girl had feelings for her as well; that had been evident since they first met on Vandia. Point being, Alex was always there to comfort her when she needed it most, and Shandra was glad. Well, gladd _er_. Heartbreak still sucked, but at least Alex was there in case she needed someone to...

Shandra felt a weight on her shoulder. She looked down to see the girl resting her head, in a cute, comforting way. Shandra couldn’t help but smile as she, in turn, leaned in and rested her head on Alex’s.

_You know, maybe she’s right. Maybe things can get better after all._

* * *

Alex lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. The holoscroll Gilgamesh had given her sat next to her, deactivated. She had been trying to find out more information that could help her make some sense of what had happened on the Mirror Planet, but she had been unable to concentrate. No matter what she did, Alex couldn’t stop thinking about Shandra.

It had been so long since Alex had felt anything like this. Ever since Naomi had left, she had felt like she could never feel that way about anyone ever again, but that was before Shandra came into her life. From the moment Alex first met Shandra, she had felt an attraction to her, and now, after everything they had been through together, Alex knew that she wanted Shandra to be a part of her life. She rolled over in her bed. It had been a long night, and Alex was getting pretty tired. Slowly, the girl began to drift off, thinking of the future she might one day share with Shandra.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps in the hallway snapped Alex out of her thoughts, forcing her awake just a bit longer. It was well after the time the rest of the crew normally turned in, so her curiosity was piqued and she decided to check it out. She got up and stuck her head out the door to see Morgan passing around the corner. _What’s she doing up this late?_ Alex wondered. She hurriedly put her boots on, then followed after Morgan, trying to figure out what she was up to.

As she rounded the bend and neared the catwalks overlooking the cargo bay, Alex spotted Morgan down below, emerging from her robotics workshop with EHRB, the ship’s repair bot, in tow. She also appeared to be carrying a Pokeball in one hand and what looked like Dmitri’s laser sword in the other. Alex quickly ducked out of sight as she watched Morgan cross the cargo bay and enter Shandra’s warp lab.

* * *

Shandra sat against the wall, staring blankly across the room. The warp drive she had recently finished repairing sat in front of her, idly maintaining a sphere of warp which bathed the room in a soft violet glow. She had been trying to explore the limits of her powers— to discover some knowledge that could help her make some sense of what had happened in the Void, but she had been unable to concentrate. No matter what she did, Shandra couldn’t stop thinking about Alex.

Shandra couldn’t remember a time when previously she had felt anything like this. After escaping with the crew from that God-forsaken research station, Shandra had found it hard to settle down and feel… normal. Morgan was one thing, but this was completely different. From the moment Alex gave that innocent, inebriated kiss in the hallway, Shandra couldn’t help but feel differently about her, and now, after everything they had been through together, Shandra knew that she wanted Alex to be a part of her life. She toyed with the ball of warp a bit, considering turning the drive off and finding some other form of amusement. It had been a long night (simulated, of course— she was in space, after all), and everyone aboard was surely asleep by now.

Suddenly, the forceful sound of knocking on the door snapped Shandra out of her thoughts. _Apparently not everyone_. It was well after the time the rest of the crew normally turned in, so her curiosity was piqued as she wondered who had stayed up this late. She remotely opened the door and saw Morgan and EHRB make their way into the room. _Something’s wrong_. Shandra thought. She turned the drive off and cautiously stood up, noticing the Pokeball Morgan held and, more importantly, the laser sword in her other hand.

“Give me the Cofagrigus,” Morgan said coldly, a look of anger on her face. Shandra had no idea how to respond, and could do nothing more than look back at her in confusion. “Give me the Cofagrigus,” Morgan said again, more forcefully than before, then activated the laser sword.

Shandra’s confusion was quickly dispersed. “Morgan… what are you doing?” she asked with an almost cold tone of alarm.

“We will never be safe until those things are _dead_ ,” she says.

“What are you talking about? What things?”

Morgan raised the laser sword, and pointed it at the Pokeball in her hand. It looked as if she intended to pierce it with the sword. “No!” the sound of Alex’s voice rang out as Morgan raised the laser sword to strike at the Pokeball. Suddenly, the Sinai girl leapt at her from behind, and wrestled the ball out of her hand.

Shandra saw Morgan preparing to swing the sword at Alex, and instinctively jumped into action. In an instant she swapped her position with the girl, and caught the blade of energy with her glowing, marked hand. Purple energy violently sparked off the mark as Shandra stared Morgan down. “Don’t you _dare_ touch her.” 

Alex fell to the floor as she suddenly found herself in a different location, and stared in a mix of shock and horror as the sword connected. Morgan stared directly at her, causing her to look down and realize she was still holding the Pokeball she had snagged.

“Give it back!” Morgan screamed from across the room.

“No! You were gonna murder it!” Alex screamed back at her. She jumped to her feet, and turned to run out of the room, but she wasn’t fast enough. Suddenly, EHRB fired one of H’s string shot grenades at her, knocking her into the wall and trapping her against it.

Driven by her need to protect Alex, Shandra pushed back against Morgan’s sword, deflecting it away and forcing her back. She quickly grabbed her electric crystal dagger, and lunged at EHRB. The blade pierced the bot’s armor and, in a shower of sparks, it forcefully deactivated. “Morgan, you’re making a mistake!” she shouted.

“It’s not a mistake! If I don’t do this, we’re all going to die!” Morgan shouted back at her.

“You’re just a no-good Pokemon murderer!” Alex screamed, tears starting to run down her cheeks. She struggled against the sticky webs binding her, somehow managing to reach one of her Pokeballs and releasing her Houndoom.

“You don’t want to do this!” Shandra shouted at Morgan again in anger. “Stop or you’ll regret it!” Morgan just looked at Shandra, a similar rage burning in her eyes, and blasted her with her mind. The burst of psychic energy sent Shandra flying across the room into the wall.

Suddenly, Dmitri stepped into the room, presumably drawn there by the abundant concentration of anger and fear. He raised his hand and cast out his own psionic energy in an attempt to put Morgan to sleep, but nothing seemed to happen.

“Diablo, stop her!” Alex shouted. The girl’s Houndoom leapt at Morgan and sank his sharp teeth into her arm. Not even wincing, Morgan stared at Alex with a look of cold hatred. But then Shandra saw her hesitate for a brief moment, and took the opportunity to pin her against the wall, pressing the electric dagger dangerously close to her neck.

“Don’t you _ever_ threaten the lives of anyone on this ship, _or their Pokemon_ , ever again,” Shandra spat through gritted teeth. “Do you understand?”

Morgan said nothing, but a look in her eyes showed how terrified she was. Shandra knew from last time that plenty of that horror was probably focused inward on immediate regret. Reluctantly, Shandra let herself off of Morgan and backed away. “Get out.”

A moment of silence passed, and Morgan was still standing there, Dmitri waiting in the doorway. Unable to keep her composure, Shandra stared at both of them with fury in her eyes. “ **GET OUT!!!** ”

Soon the room was empty, save for a very pissed-off Shandra and a very stuck Alex. Without warning Shandra screamed, ramming the knife into the wall in an attempt to vent her anger and leaving a sizeable gash in the process. After a few moments of attempting to calm herself down, she carefully removed the blade from the panelling, and headed over to where Alex still lay affixed to the wall.

“Are you ok?” Shandra asked, cutting away at the webbing that was restraining Alex. The girl fell to the floor, still covered in web, and Shandra collapsed down with her, easing her descent.

“I… I think so,” the girl said as Diablo trotted over and gave her a few licks to the face, wiping away her tears. The Houndoom then looked down and whimpered, seemingly distraught that he got his paws in the sticky remains of the grenade. He pawed at the ground in an attempt to get it out of his fur.

Alex let out a small laugh at this, just before Shandra wrapped her arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. “I’m glad,” she said as Alex recalled Diablo and returned her embrace. The two eased up and sat there for several moments, gazing into each other’s eyes. Slowly, they drifted closer together, and Shandra could feel Alex’s breath against her skin.

Shandra leaned in, and her lips locked with Alex’s. In that moment, the entire Galaxy seemed to stand still and Shandra felt her anger completely fade away. Nothing seemed to matter besides the two of them, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, she felt truly happy.

Shandra pulled away, and realized that she had unintentionally gotten covered in the sticky web as well. “That… could have been thought through a bit more,” Shandra admitted as she attempted to flick it off of her clothing in mild disgust. 

Alex couldn’t help but laugh at the sight, and leapt at Shandra, hugging her again and knocking them both to the floor. “Yeah, maybe just a bit,” the girl replied, as they both lay chuckling on the floor of the warp lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was actually one of the first chapters I planned for this series. When the idea of this alternate universe first sprang into my head, my brain immediately jumped on Volume 2, Chapter 18 because it was what was supposed to be the pivotal moment in Shane and Morgan’s relationship, and it was also the first instance of Shane using Ally Switch to save Alex from danger. To me, this seemed like the obvious moment that everything would come together.
> 
> All that said, I’m very glad Shane's player helped me write this because I don’t think all my ideas would have connected so well otherwise. I can definitely say that this is my favorite chapter of Blueshift so far.
> 
> Given that the original chapter was so short, it made the most sense to just tear the whole thing apart and reconstruct it as one Blueshift chapter. I decided to open with Shandra on the bridge before the crew returned to just give the scene a different perspective from the original, and Shane's player made it amazing. High Shandra is best Shandra.
> 
> That brings us to the hallway scene, which is specifically the first moment of Blueshift I thought of besides the first chapter. The brief interaction between Shane and Alex in the original was ripe for expansion. It’s probably canonical to actual Spacemon that Alex shared her past relationship woes with Shane after the scene cut away (and probably would have been included in the chapter had Alex’s origin story been written before then). Obviously, given that Alex has feelings for Shandra in this universe, it would have gone a little further. In my mind, this is where Shandra definiteively would have chosen Alex over Morgan.
> 
> The final scene is the one we changed the most. Given that Shandra let go of her feelings for Morgan, her reaction to Morgan’s insanity is far harsher than Shane’s. It’s only multiplied by the fact that Morgan is trying to hurt Alex in this scene. It dawned on me that Shandra using Ally Switch with Alex takes on a whole new meaning that it didn’t have when Shane did it very early on when thinking about how this universe’s story played out, although Shane's player revealed to me once I started posting Blueshift that Shane had developed a little crush on Alex, which is why he always seemed to put himself in harm’s way to take Alex out of it. Given that that crush has actually led to something in this universe, it really makes the scene that much better I think. And, of course, the scene ends way differently, with Shandra staying to cut Alex down instead of confessing her love for Morgan and going after her. Obviously, we couldn’t end on a sour note, so we get to see the true birth of Shandra and Alex’s romantic relationship with a sweet little ending. From here, things can only diverge further and I’m excited to see where this story leads next since I don’t have much else planned.


	5. Am I Not Human?

Alex sat in her room, looking out the viewport at the city skyline, backlit by the setting sun. The _Helix_ been resupplying and refueling on this planet, but the crew was getting ready to head out. The girl leaned back against her bedframe, and waited for the ship to take off. Despite the new advances in her relationship with Shandra, she couldn’t shake the feeling of sadness she felt right now. The crew was looking for her father with her— Alex had been so excited at the prospect of finding him again— but the trail of clues they had been following stopped at the Mirror Planet. 

Suddenly, the ship lurched as it took off. Alex watched the cities of the planet fade from view as the _Helix_ ascended into the evening sky, eventually leaving the world behind as a small circle outside the viewport. Deprived of her scenic view, Alex got up and wandered over to the ship’s bridge. Everyone had pretty much already gathered around— apart from H, who was still under strict bedrest orders— and they were discussing their next steps.

“ _Sooo_ , what crazy planet are we headed to next?” Minerva asked.

_Good question_ , Alex thought. With her father’s trail having gone cold the girl didn’t have even the slightest clue as to where she and her friends were going to next.

As she looked around the room at her crewmates, it appeared to Alex that they were just as unsure of what to do next as she was. The conference was still several weeks away and, as far as Alex knew, the crew didn’t have anything else planned. If she had her way, they would be continuing the search for her father, but she had no idea where to look. The girl didn’t find anything that could help on the Mirror Planet, and the holoscroll that Gilgamesh had given her wasn’t much help either.

Thinking of the old monk seemed to jog the girl’s memory, and she remembered that he had given them a set of coordinates. “What about that Gardener thing?” Alex asked. Given that they had nothing else to be doing, she figured that they might as well check it out.

“It _is_ our only available lead at the moment,” Morgan quietly asserted, skulking and skimming through the ship’s logs.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Shandra agreed.

“So where is this ‘Gardener thing?’” Minerva asked.

“It’s at these coordinates in Sinai space,” Morgan spoke up. She leaned over the console and plugged in the coordinates Gilgamesh had given her.

Almost instantly, Alex saw a worried look appear on Shandra’s face when she saw the coordinates. Before Alex got the chance to ask her what was wrong, the blue-haired girl quickly backed up and left the bridge in a hurry.

“Hey, where are you going?” Alex called after her. She ran off the bridge, but found the corridor empty. _She must have teleported away_ , the girl realized.

Alex’s first instinct was to check the warp lab; that’s where she always found Shandra. The girl quickly descended to the lower deck and made her way to the labs, but Shandra was nowhere to be found. _That’s weird_ , she thought. Shandra was always in her lab, messing around with the Warp. The fact that she wasn’t there made Alex even more worried than she already was.

_Maybe in her room?_ Alex guessed. She knew that Shandra never used it, but it was the only possible place she could have been. Alex climbed back up to the upper deck, and headed to the living quarters. Shandra’s door was unlocked, which made Alex sure she had to be there. 

“Shandra, are you in here?” Alex called out as she stuck her head in the door. There was no response and the door the room seemed to be empty. _Where the hell is she?_ Alex had been sure that Shandra would be here, so she stepped into the room in disbelief. Looking around, she spotted a computer on the desk, casting a faint glow into the room. Alex approached it, and was relieved to see Shandra on the screen, even if she was hiding away, huddled in the corner of a virtual room.

“Shandra?” Alex asked again, but Shandra seemed to be trying to ignore her. “Shandra, what’s wrong?”

“I just…” Shandra trailed off. “I don’t want to go back to that place.”

Alex furrowed her brow in confusion. “What do you mean, ‘back?’” she asked

“Those coordinates… That’s where I’m from.”

“So?” Alex asked. “That’s where we need to go… And I’ll be there with you, no matter what.”

At that, Shandra seemed to loosen up a bit. She turned around to face Alex. “Thanks,” she told the girl. “That means a lot, but… you don’t understand; that’s where they created me.”

“What are you talking about?” Alex asked, more confused than ever. 

Shandra sighed. “Remember how I said I was a glitch in reality?”

Alex thought back to the conversation she had with Shandra just after their victory at the Fighting Gym. “That’s how you can go into the computer, right?” the girl asked, tapping the screen with her finger.

“Well, yeah,” Shandra answered. “But there’s more to it than that. You see…” She trailed off, seeming to hesitate for a moment. “I’m not really Human…”

“What do you mean you’re not Human?” Alex asked. She couldn’t understand what Shandra was talking about. “Of course you are.”

“But... I’m _not_ ,” Shandra told her. “I am an artificially created… _thing_ that was programmed on that station we’re headed to. By all definitions of the term, I’m an AI.”

The mention of AI sent Alex’s thoughts spinning. It didn’t make sense. It _couldn’t_. AIs didn’t exist, and they were supposed to be cold and emotionless. Shandra felt so real. “How can that make sense?” Alex asked.

Shandra seemed to sense Alex’s inner turmoil, as she stood up on screen. “It fucking doesn’t. I’m a glitch in reality, remember?” Shandra reached out a hand and in an instant she was outside of the computer again; the transition startled Alex, causing her to take a step back and stumble onto the bed behind her. Shandra sat down next to her and pulled her into a hug. “But I want you to know that I would never hurt you.”

Shandra’s words snapped Alex back to reality, and the girl relaxed in her arms. If Shandra said she was an AI, then it was true. Alex always thought an AI would be something like Starnet in the _Eliminator_ films, not someone who felt real, not someone who she could fall in love with. The girl clenched her fists as she shoved all those thoughts away. _None of that matters._

“I know,” Alex said finally, looking right into Shandra’s vibrant green eyes. “And I don’t care if you’re an AI. You’re a real person to me, and that’s all that matters.”

The two stayed like that for a while, just leaning their heads on each other. 

“What’s it like?” Alex asked. “Going in and out of a computer?”

Shandra just laughed and hugged Alex tighter. “Craziest trip of your life.”

* * *

As the _Helix_ dropped out of warp space at the coordinates that Gilgamesh provided to the ship’s crew, Shandra couldn’t help but feel nervous, despite being surrounded by her friends. It felt like a lifetime ago that she fled from this place, not that she saw much of it on her way out. The remote system on the fringes of Sector 12 was entirely uninhabited save for the Sinai research station she had escaped from.

The _Helix_ flew past the large gas giants on the edge of the system, arriving at the small, icy world the station orbited. As the ship approached the station, Morgan reached out to the console and hailed it. _Nope_. Shandra thought as she quickly ducked behind the console to avoid being seen as a Sinai researcher appeared on the viewscreen. _Nope nope nope nope nope_. He was a balding, older looking man wearing a lab coat and some sort of religious symbol around his neck. Something about him seemed so familiar, but Shandra’s memory of her time at this station felt fuzzy. Even now, she wanted to forget it all.

“This is a restricted area,” the man spoke. “State your business.”

“We’re here looking for information on something called the Gardener,” Morgan told him.

A very serious expression appeared on the man’s face. “Who are you?” he asked.

“We were told these coordinates by a monk named Gilgamesh,” Morgan responded.

The researcher’s expression turned quite sour at the mention of the monk. It was clear he recognized the name. “ _Him_ … Look, I don’t know what he’s after, but you can just _leave_. This is a _restricted_ area.”

As the man continued to speak, Shandra felt herself filling with anger. The man’s cold expression and harsh tone caused a wave of memories to overcome her. This was the face she saw ever so briefly in the past, overseeing the many agonizing experiments she had tried to forget since her departure.

“We didn’t come here looking for trouble,” Morgan told the researcher, growing more irritable by the minute. “But we’re more than capable of starting some.”

“Easy there, Morgan,” Dmitri said from his vantage point against the back wall of the bridge. “We’re just here for information.”

“What kind of information?” the man asked, his irritation also growing. “The project here is classified. We can’t just freely give out information to whoever just flies in here.”

_Enough of this_ , Shandra thought. She clenched her fists, and stepped out from her hiding spot. “Can you tell me?” she asked, her tone stern and fierce.

“ _You!_ ” the man shouted upon seeing her, his face displaying a look of pure shock. “What is _she_ doing on your ship?”

“She’s part of our crew,” Morgan told him. “And she deserves to know what’s going on here.”

“This woman is a wanted fugitive,” the researcher responded. “You will surrender her to our custody and we _may_ still let you leave.”

“Oh, really?” Shandra asked indignantly with a tone that reeked of sarcasm. “I didn’t know that. What am I wanted for?”

“Theft of Sinai scientific assets.”

“When we found her, she was being _attacked_ by your nation’s scientists,” Morgan replied sternly. “If we have something you want, we’ll give it back, but she stays with us.”

“You don’t understand,” Shandra told her. “You have _me_.”

“This woman is property of the Sinai Ascendancy,” the researcher continued. “You will return her to us, post-haste.”

“She’s not property!” Alex shouted. The girl grabbed Shandra's hand and held it tightly. “She’s a person!”

“She is _not_ , in fact, _a person_ ,” the researcher responded. He then turned to Shandra with a slight grin on his face. “You haven’t told them, _have you?_ ”

“Fun fact: I _have_ ,” Shandra informed the man.

“She’s a person to me!” Alex shouted. “I don’t care what you say!”

The researcher’s grin turned to a scowl. “Foolish girl,” he dismissed Alex. “So, why are you here then?” he asked, turning back to Shandra. “Why are you _really_ here?”

“We already told you,” Shandra informed him. “The Gardener.”

“How about we make a deal?” the Sinai man asked. His grin returned as he shifted his gaze back to Morgan. “You return this… _thing_ … to us and we will reveal to you what you want to know.”

“We can _talk_ ,” Morgan replied coldly.

“I look forward to it,” the man responded, just before the call ended and the screen went black.

Morgan turned to look at her crewmates. “They won’t tell us what we want to know, even if we give them Shandra.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Shandra said as she dropped to her knees, quite shaken from the encounter with her past. Alex quickly leaned down and wrapped her arms around her. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” the girl said. “I won’t let him take you away, no matter what.”

“She’s right,” Morgan agreed. “We’ll fight them if we have to, but we’re going to at least try to talk to them first.”

“Thanks,” Shandra replied as Alex pulled her up. _I guess it’s now or never._ “Let’s go talk.”

* * *

Shandra stepped off the _Helix_ into the station’s docking bay with Morgan, Alex, and Dmitri close behind. The scientist stood waiting, flanked by four guards. “Welcome,” he said as the crew approached. “I am Dr. Jeremiah.” He lifted a hand, and motioned his men to start moving in, toward Shandra.

“I said we could talk _first_ ,” Morgan immediately objected.

“What about?” Jeremiah responded. “I believe the agreement was: hand over your… _compatriot_ … and we will tell you what you wish to know.”

“If I remember correctly, we never agreed to that,” Shandra said. “How do we know that you’re not gonna cross your own deal?”

“I could ask you lot the same question,” Jeremiah replied, extending his arms in a phony welcoming gesture. “Come now, we can be civil about this, no?”

“There’s nothing _civil_ about this,” Morgan sneered.

“We’re not handing her over!” Alex demanded, grabbing hold of Shandra’s arm.

Shandra moved to step forward, but Alex clung tightly to her arm. Shandra looked back at her and gave her a reassuring nod. _It’s okay, Alex, I know what I’m doing_. Slowly, the girl released her grip, allowing Shandra to go. _At the very least I hope so_. Stepping toward the guards, Shandra held her hands up, signaling that she was turning herself in.

“What are you doing, Shandra?!” Morgan screamed as she noticed the blue-haired girl walking past her. Shandra didn’t bother looking back or responding. She had to at least look confident in front of her crew, but inside she was trembling. _Deep breaths, Shandra. You can do this._

Jeremiah waved to the guards, and they moved in with restraints, not just for Shandra’s hands, but for her legs and head as well. Shandra recognized the terrible octopus-like contraptions that had held her captive at the station so long ago and immediately regretted her decision. _NOPE. YOU CAN’T DO THIS. ABORT._ Without hesitation, Shandra instinctively closed her eyes and dropped herself into warp space to escape.

Floating in the familiar void of the Warp, Shandra calmed down and opened her eyes. She could vaguely see the scene she just left, twisting and distorting in the violet swirls of darkness like a spectre. She saw the guards send out some Pokemon— what looked like a Mr. Mime, a Gallade, a Solrock, and a Reuniclus— and turned to see her crew do the same. There was no sound— it was like she was watching a highly fluctuating holographic projection. It almost didn’t seem real. Shandra let out a sigh as the battle began to unfold, swimming over to a point behind the scientists. Oh, it was real alright, and at the moment, though she wanted nothing more than to stay hidden in the Warp, her friends needed her help. _Deep breaths, Shandra_. She closed her eyes and prepared to drop back to reality. _You can do this_.

Shandra dropped herself back into normal space, and found herself directly in front of the Mr. Mime. Giratina’s mark sparking violently with shadowy energy, Shandra lunged at the startled Pokemon and struck it with her fist. Much to her surprise, the Pokemon fell to the floor, knocked out. _They must have hit it already_ , Shandra thought, seeing her crewmates’ Pokemon surrounding her.

“Jean, use Electro Ball!” Morgan commanded her Pikachu, attempting to cover Shandra as she retreated back toward the others. The electric mouse dashed past Shandra as she ran, and leapt into the air, unleashing a large ball of lightning at the Reuniclus. As the Pikachu landed, the Gallade ran up to him, arm raised to strike. However, the nimble Pokemon dodged out of the way at the last second, causing the Gallade’s fist to collide with the ground.“Keep moving Jean!” Morgan shouted as the Solrock fired a wave of psychic energy at her Pokemon. Shandra was impressed as the Pikachu once more dove out of harm’s way.

Once safely back alongside her crewmates, Shandra reached for V.O.I.D.’s Pokeball, taking the opportunity to release the Cofagrigus onto the field as she surveyed the battlefield. She saw the Reuniclus charge up a ball of energy, then launch it at Alex’s Umbreon. The attack landed dead on, but Ebony stood strong, even if she looked a little worse for wear.

“Gigan, hit that Reuniclus again with another X-Scissor!” Dmitri shouted. His recently evolved Scizor flew at Ebony’s assailant, claws raised to strike. Gigan swiped at the Reuniclus as she passed it, and knocked it out.

“Jean, use Volt Tackle on that Gallade!” Morgan commanded her Pikachu. The speedy electric Pokemon once more charged into the fray, building up electricity around himself. The Pikachu leapt at the Gallade, and slammed into it. However, the Pokemon shrugged off the hit, and fired a beam of electricity at Ebony. Being the resilient Pokemon that she was, the Umbreon seemed unfazed.

Meanwhile, the Solrock locked-on to Jean, and fired a large blast of Psychic energy at him, finally taking the dodgy Pokemon out of the fight. In a quick motion, Morgan recalled the fainted Pikachu and released freshly evolved Dewott.

“Gigan, use Wing Attack on that Gallade!” Dmitri commanded his Scizor, covering Morgan as she swapped Pokemon. The metallic Pokemon flew in close for the hit, slicing the Gallade with her armored wings.

“V.O.I.D., finish it off with Shadow Ball!” Shandra yelled to her Cofagrigus, finally getting her head in the fight. The ghostly Pokemon built up a ball of dark energy in her shadowy hands, and lobbed it at the Gallade, taking it down. That just left the Solrock.

“Ebony, use Faint Attack!” Alex commanded her Umbreon, pointing at the remaining Pokemon. Ebony charged at the Solrock, and slammed into it, knocking it back a bit.

Seeing the fight not going in his men’s favor, Jeremiah turned to run out of the room. “Gigan, stop him!” Dmitri commanded his Pokemon, seeing the scientist attempting to flee. The Scizor swiftly flew after the man, and knocked him down, drawing a bit of blood with her claws in the process.

The Solrock, meanwhile, focused on V.O.I.D., firing a psychic wave at the Cofagrigus. The attack hit dead on and dealt a heavy blow, but Shandra knew V.O.I.D. would be okay. _She is a ghost, after all._

“Herman, use Razor Shell!” Morgan commanded her Dewott. The Pokemon rushed forward at the Solrock, and slashed it with his shell, dealing a powerful hit.

Shandra could tell the Pokemon was on the ropes, so she commanded her Pokemon to deliver the final blow. “V.O.I.D., use Shadow Ball and finish it off!” she ordered. The Cofagrigus unleashed another powerful ball of dark energy, and took it down.

With the battle won, Shandra glanced around at the guards; she was ready to fight them too, if necessary. However, they didn’t move from their positions on the edge of the battlefield. Shandra angrily walked up to where Jeremiah lay on the floor, and the guards stayed out of her way. She crouched down beside the researcher, looking at him with contempt. “Now, I’m gonna ask you again,” she said coldly. “Tell us about the Gardener.”

Jeremiah propped himself up against the wall. “You really don’t know anything do you?” he asked, laughing. “What are you going to do to me?” The man’s voice rang with a patronizing tone.

_Shit, what **are** we gonna do to him?_ Shandra wondered briefly. She lifted her marked arm and willed it to start glowing. “What are you most afraid of?” she asked in an attempt to sound intimidating. Jeremiah did not seem impressed.

As Shandra stood up, frowning at the Sinai scientist, Dmitri walked over and placed a hand on Jeremiah’s forehead. _Oh, okay, you’ve got something?_ Shandra thought as she backed away, figuring the Romanov was attempting to use whatever powers he had gained on the Mirror Planet. Unfortunately, after several moments, all Dmitri appeared to be succeeding at was looking like an idiot.

“Keep trying,” Morgan told him. “I’m going to see if I can hack into their computers.” She walked over to a console a little ways down the corridor and began playing around with it.

Shandra turned her attention back to Dmitri, who was now repeatedly slapping Jeremiah on the forehead in an attempt to do… _something_. Shandra couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at the sight.

“Shandra!” Morgan’s voice suddenly snapped Shandra to attention. “I think Alex might be in trouble! Come with me!”

Shandra looked around her and saw that, sure enough, Alex seemed to have disappeared. _She was just here!_ she thought in dismay. _Where could she have gone?_ “Stay here,” Shandra told Dmitri. “See if you can get him to talk.” She then ran after Morgan, following her deeper into the station. If something bad happened to Alex, Shandra would never forgive herself.

Footsteps echoed through the maze of corridors as the two ran through the station, eventually coming to a stop next to a locked door. For some reason, Shandra could have sworn there were fewer hallways. _Guess it’s too bad that I **wanted** to forget about this place, now that I need to remember it._ Morgan pulled up a map of the ship she had downloaded, showing an alarm on the other side of the door, but neither of them could decipher enough of the Sinai script on the door’s console to navigate its menus. 

Suddenly, from the other side of the door came the unmistakeable sound of Alex screaming in pain. Shandra tensed up, and instinctively grabbed onto Morgan, teleporting the both of them to the other side of the door. Shandra immediately reached for K.E.Y.S.’s Pokeball as she took in the situation. Alex lay curled up and spasming on top of a Magnezone, while a nearby Electivire had just turned around to apprehend the new intruders.

Morgan quickly released her own Pokemon, and, along with Shandra, the team engaged Alex’s electric assailants. “Lucien, use Fake-Out!” Morgan commanded her Liepard, pointing at the Electivire. The swift Pokemon charged forward, getting the drop on the large yellow beast and causing it to flinch.

Sensing the oncoming assault, the Magnezone activated its magnets and pulled K.E.Y.S. towards itself. However, it kept the Klefki at a distance to prevent him from attacking. It then locked-on to Lucien and charged up a wave of electricity, blasting it outward to hit the Liepard, which stumbled and spasmed a bit from the jolt.

“K.E.Y.S., use Flash Cannon on the Electivire!” Shandra commanded her Pokemon. The Klefki didn’t need to be close to hit anything. He targeted the large yellow creature, and fired a blast of light at it. Shandra then used her own power to swap places with Alex; she needed to get the girl out of harm’s way.

From her new perch atop the Magnezone, Shandra watched Morgan fire a blast of psychic energy at the Electivire before running over to Alex. She pulled the girl over to the wall and propped her up against it. _Oh thank God_ , Shandra thought with relief; Alex was safe. From her new resting place, Alex pulled out one of her Pokeballs and released her Lucario. “Use Focus Blast,” the girl grunted. It sounded like she was in pain.

_Time to get out of here_ , Shandra thought as the Lucario lobbed a massive ball of aura energy at the Magnezone. She quickly blipped herself down to the ground as the attack found its mark. In response, the Magnezone flew down into the middle of the three Pokemon attacking it, and unleashed a massive discharge of electricity. The Electivire then followed up by throwing a ball of lightning at K.E.Y.S., leaving the Klefki quite beaten up. Seeing how hurt her Pokemon was, Shandra recalled him as Morgan continued to bark orders at her Pokemon. The Liepard ran up to the Electivire, and leapt up at it, clawing at its face in fury and finally taking it down. The Magnezone paid in kind by slamming itself into Lucien, instantly knocking the Liepard out as well.

“Anubis, use Power-Up Punch,” Alex grunted to her Pokemon. The girl’s Lucario charged at the Magnezone, and punched it squarely in the eye. Morgan then fired another blast of psychic energy at it to finish it off.

With the danger passed, Shandra dashed over to Alex’s side. “Are you alright?” she asked. The girl nodded, but remained silent; she looked pretty shaken up. “I was so worried,” Shandra continued, pulling Alex into hug. 

“Ow, ow, not so tight,” Alex said, wincing in pain a little as Shandra embraced her.

“Sorry,” Shandra apologized, loosening up a bit. The two stayed there for a moment, but Shandra eventually broke away and pulled Alex to her feet. However, as soon as Alex took a step, her right leg gave out on her. Shandra quickly grabbed the girl to keep her from falling. “Easy there,” Shandra told her, reaching around the girl’s back. “Why don’t you just lean on me?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. Thanks,” Alex said as she reached around Shandra’s neck to help support herself. Hobbling along, the three then resumed their search for the Gardener, wandering down the unfamiliar hallways together this time.

Eventually, the trio found their way to a large open chamber that Morgan’s map pointed them to. With Alex’s help, reading the map was a lot easier. Immediately upon entering, the thing that stood out to Shandra was a large, dimly lit mechanical sphere in the center of the room. There was a mess of cables extending out from it, sprawling out in all directions along the floor and hanging from pipelines that crept along the ceiling.

Shandra stayed back from the object, as Alex was still leaning on her, and stared at it from a distance while Morgan approached it. As she watched Morgan investigate the sphere, Shandra couldn’t shake the feeling of familiarity it stirred in her. _I must have seen it when I was here before_ , she rationalized, but that didn’t seem right to her.

“I need to go check that thing out,” Shandra said, lead Alex over to a nearby console. “Are you going to be okay here?” she asked after helping the girl lean up against it. Alex nodded, so Shandra approached the sphere to check it out for herself.

Upon closer inspection, the object appeared to be very damaged. Shandra peered into a large crack on its surface and was greeted by the sight of badly damaged ancient computer parts with some sort of big crystal object in the center. _What is this thing?_ Shandra wondered. Something about the crystal made her think that it should have been glowing, but it was completely dark. She got the sense that when this sphere was intact, it would be a very sophisticated computational system— quite accommodating to someone such as herself. However, in its current state, the sphere seemed too badly damaged to house any sort of digital architecture.

As Shandra continued to investigate the sphere, she heard Morgan calling Dmitri on her Pokedex. “Dmitri, come to our location now, and bring that scientist with you,” she said. 

A few minutes later, Dmitri arrived on the scene, dragging Jeremiah along with him. “What... is _this?_ ” Shandra asked the scientist rather forcefully, pointing at the sphere.

“This is, or at least _was_ , the Gardener,” Jeremiah answered.

“Was?” Shandra asked, somewhat confused. _This piece of junk?_

“It doesn’t look to be Gardening any more, does it?” Jeremiah asked smugly.

“What did you do to it?” Morgan asked sternly.

“We found it. We studied it. We tried to salvage what we could from the damage.”

“Was the crystal dead when you found it?” Shandra asked.

“It was _dying_ , certainly.”

“Was it _dead?_ ” Morgan asked, approaching the scientist in a fit of rage.

“We didn’t kill it, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Jeremiah responded. “We saved it.”

“It’s _dead_ , how can you have _saved_ it?”

“Where is it now then?” Alex asked from the console she was leaning on.

“You haven’t asked about the other half of this facility, have you?” Jeremiah returned with a question of his own. _Aaaand here we go_. Shandra felt all eyes fall on her at the man’s words. “What do you know about artificial intelligence?” Jeremiah asked, turning to face Morgan again.

“True AI doesn’t really exist,” Morgan replied, the words causing an instinctive wince from Shandra. “All currently developed AI can’t-”

“Correction,” Jeremiah interrupted her. “All _Human_ -developed AI. We are not advanced enough to develop a truly independent thinking intelligence. At least… not on our own.”

Morgan stared down the scientist, the young woman’s hands clenching into fists in her rage. Morgan walked up to Jeremiah and took a hard swing at his face, drawing some blood from his quickly swelling lips. She raised her fist again as Jeremiah spat some blood onto the floor, but held herself back from a second swing. “You _experimented_ on another sentient being!?”

“We found this,” Jeremiah responded, annoyed at the state of his rapidly deteriorating situation. “Badly damaged. Nonfunctioning. We salvaged what we could and built something from its core. We built-”

Morgan clocked him in the face again, and Dmitri did nothing but hold him in place. He seemed to be considering letting go and, instead, trying to restrain Morgan. _But then Jeremiah could escape, right?_

“Doing what you did…” Morgan spat, tears dripping their way down her cheeks. “Even doing that to Pokemon would be considered cruel!”

Shandra quickly stopped her from giving the man a third blow. After gently shoving Morgan aside, she looked at Jeremiah with a cold, serious expression. “I guess we’ve been asking the wrong question,” she said. “Who am _I_?”

Jeremiah laughed. “Do you really not know?”

Shandra looked over at the damaged shell of the Gardener, then back to the scientist. “I’m starting to piece it together, yeah. I just need to hear _you_ say it.”

“You are, or at least _were_ , the Gardener.”

A long silence filled the room as the revelation of Shandra’s past set in. _God..._ Shandra was trying so hard to process everything. _Fucking..._ She looked over at the wrecked sphere for several more moments, as if sizing it up properly for the first time. _Dammit._ This entire endeavor had led to nothing but this now non-functioning mass of computers, and they had no new leads from it. _Oh, and I’m supposedly a being who seeded the entire motherfucking Galaxy with life. Surprise!_ She then turned back to Jeremiah before finally speaking. “I don’t suppose you would mind if I take my home back, right?” she asked, turning back to Jeremiah.

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” the scientist less asked than observed.

“No, not really.”

And with that, Shandra and Dmitri walked over to the sphere, unplugged it from everything, and began rolling it toward the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! It’s finally done! This chapter was an endeavor to write, that’s for sure. The original chapter was one of the longest chapters in all of Spacemon, so it was brutal to go through and adapt. Plus Shane's player and I didn’t have a whole lot of communication for a while so we didn’t get to finishing it as soon as originally planned!
> 
> There’s a whole lot going on in this chapter, even though we’ve seen most of it before. The events of Volume 2, Chapter 19 were very important to Shane’s character, as well as the overall plot, so the same had to hold true for Shandra. Of course there are a few details that are different, and there was lots of opportunity to focus on writing specifically from the perspective of particular characters. We added a bit to the beginning of the chapter to make it flow nicely, and then fed into a scene from Alex’s perspective that originally was an exchange between Morgan and Shane. This time, it’s Alex who goes to comfort Shandra and, in the process, learn about her being an AI. I referenced the exchange from Volume 2, Chapter 15 in which Alex learned about Shane’s/Shandra’s computer powers, and then fed into the revelation. Given the romantic relationship between Alex and Shandra, I felt it important that she heard it directly from Shandra. I also got to play around with the dissonance within Alex from her both being afraid of AI and being in love with one. I really like how it turned out.
> 
> The part where Alex ran off was great because it gave an opportunity to show Shandra’s worry for the girl, and once again gave new meaning to her using Ally Switch. It was also fun to swap the whole thing from Alex’s perspective in the original to Shandra’s. Speaking of Shandra’s perspective, it was really fun writing the battle against the psychic types from her perspective because I got to show what it’s like to use Phantom Force in this universe.
> 
> Also of note, I pulled in a few bits from the beginning of Volume 2, Chapter 20 at the end to make for a good ending. The final scene also shows Morgan going off the deep end a bit after all the craziness in the previous chapter of Blueshift. Across the chapter we see her a bit more withdrawn from her crewmates than in the canon universe, and a lot more aggressive. In this universe, she actually succeeded in punching Jeremiah in the face. Even though this story focuses on the relationship between Alex and Shandra, I think it will be fun to see where we take Morgan’s character.


	6. Aftershocks

Cold silence filled the air of the _Helix_ ’s med bay as Morgan stood in the corner, quietly interacting with a monitor near the examination table where Alex was currently sitting. She pressed a panel on the display and MARIA whirred to life, homing in to inject Alex with a mild muscle relaxant to help assuage the effects of the lingering paralysis. _Why did she have to run off like that?_ Morgan wondered, glancing over at the injured girl. As MARIA finished and wheeled itself out of the way, Morgan approached and gave Alex a quick look over. Without speaking, she reached over to the girl and lifted up the her top to examine her injuries for herself, and was shocked to see extensive bruising all along her right side.

Morgan looked up to see Alex giving her a cold look, but the girl quickly averted her gaze. Morgan sighed. _Silence speaks louder than words._ After updating some medical logs, Morgan looked back up and saw Alex staring intently at practically anything that _wasn’t_ her. Finally, she decided to break the silence. “This is what you get for running off like that. You need to be more careful.”

“Why would _you_ care?” Alex snapped back at her.

Morgan immediately regretted her decision. “Because you’re a part of this crew; it’s my job.” She turned and walked over to the counter to retrieve an ice pack for Alex’s swollen bruises.

“You didn’t seem to care about those Pokemon,” she heard Alex grumble behind her.

Morgan closed her eyes and let out a deep, angry sigh. She had been trying to be professional, but the comment still struck a nerve. “Look, I’m sorry, okay!’ she shouted, turning to face the girl. “But those kind of Pokemon are a real threat to all of us!”

Alex leapt to her feet. “What do you mean ‘those kind of Pokemon?!’” she shouted. “Lumiera’s a ghost! Are you gonna try to kill her too?!”

“No, that’s not what I-” Morgan cut herself off and held out the ice pack. “Look, I’m _not_ having this conversation right now,” she said angrily. “Just take this and-”

Before Morgan could finish, Alex swatted her arm away. “Just leave me alone!” the girl screamed as the ice pack clattered to the floor. “I _hate_ you!”

“I’m trying to protect us! You just don’t understand!”

“Yes I do! You’re a murderer! And a liar! I trusted you!” Tears streaming down her cheeks, Alex ran out of the med bay and the room fell silent once more.

Morgan let out a terse sigh and recovered the ice pack, storing it away with the rest of the ship’s medical supplies. _You don’t understand._ Few if any of her crewmates saw through the facade of anger anymore, but if they could, they would see just how weak and scared Morgan felt. _Nobody does._ She wasn’t afraid of the ghosts— far from it, in fact— but she did use them as scapegoats for her own insecurities. It was a lot easier to be angry at something when it wasn’t you. Despite this, though, the one she truly feared was herself. Morgan caught herself staring at the mirrored surface in the back of the cabinet at her reflection for far longer than she felt she had any right to.

“Morgan!? Where are you!?”

The sound of H’s angry shout pierced through the silence. Shortly thereafter, the cyborg burst into the room with a rage in his eyes greater even than what Morgan was feeling at the moment. “How dare you try to attempt that!?” he berated her. “How dare you mess with anything I have!? How dare you mess with something that is one of a kind, so specific, and so incredibly valuable to this crew!? You see, every single thing that happens with you, your emotions take control, you allow your anger to send you into a spiral of fiery fury and you wreak havoc on everything! You can’t let your emotions do that! You’re smart, that’s why you’re here, but you have emotions and you keep letting them take control of you and doing stupid things! Just quit it! You’re going to cause incredible amount of damage to yourself and everyone on this crew!”

Morgan closed her eyes and attempted to drown out H’s incessant ranting. The more he talked, the angrier she felt; her insides were a whirlpool of emotions that she constantly tried to quell, lest she drown in their wake. Clenching her fists, Morgan looked at the cyborg, locking eyes with him in an almost predatory glare. “You don’t know what fury is,” she snarled.

“I don’t care what fury is,” H snapped back at her. “I know that emotions have the power to be incredibly destructive. I don’t _want_ to know what fury is, and I don’t think you do either. It will only cause problems. Stop doing it, or someone else will make you. You have to realize, I don’t care how much you fear or don’t want something, that Trevenant, or even that Cofagrigus thing! Pokemon are important! Pokemon are tools that allow us to achieve our goals and that is where they work. We work with them and they work with us. The Trevenant, and many of the Pokemon on this ship are one of a kind, irreplaceable tools and-”

The cyborg’s words were cut short abruptly as Morgan unleashed her fury. Blasting H with all the psionic energy she could muster, Morgan launched him across the med bay and into the wall on the far side of the room. Her rage boiling over, Morgan glared at H as he slumped to the floor. 

“Tools?” Morgan snapped.  “Is that all you think anyone is?!”

“Of course!” H responded, completely deadpan, as he pushed himself back to his feet with a well-timed pogo. “Pokemon are our tools just as we are theirs! Only through the combined effort of both can we achieve perfe-”

The cyborg’s words were cut short once more as Morgan’s Pokeball collided with his jaw. The ball fell to the floor, releasing her Espeon as she began to bark orders at her.

“Yvonne, use Psybeam!”

* * *

Shandra lay against the far wall of the warp lab as usual, staring into the purple sphere in the center of the room. Usually she would be hard at work trying to stretch the limits of her power, but right now she really wasn’t feeling it. The whole ‘Gardener’ revelation was getting to her, and in her state of mind, all she felt she could muster was simple manipulation: playing with a small ball of warp, moving it about the room, expanding and contracting it.

Even that got boring after a while, so she powered down the machine and stared at the open doorway across from her. She had warmed up to the crew enough to feel comfortable leaving it open, and besides, it wasn’t as if she had any valuables that she wanted to hide. Shandra closed her eyes and was about to drift off into what she could only assume was sleep when Alex suddenly ran into the room, bawling. Shandra barely managed to stand up before the girl had already bolted across the room and nearly tackled her against the wall with a hug, then collapsed to the floor, clinging to her knees. 

“Hey,” Shandra said as she crouched down to Alex’s level, hugging her. “Are you alright?” She felt the girl forcibly shake her head and bury her face into her shirt. “What’s wrong?”

Alex continued to cry in Shandra’s embrace, but not really answer. Shandra sighed and said, “Look, I can’t really help if I don’t know how, can I?”

From deep within a different part of the ship, Shandra could hear a distinct thud, followed by shouting. “Though, I suspect that may have something to do with it.”

Alex nodded. Shandra’s shoulder was getting damp from the girl’s tears. The best she could do was hold the girl until she eventually calmed down and regained some semblance of composure. Sounds of struggle continued, muffled by distance, though steadily approaching. The lights flickered and Shandra could only assume H was involved.

“Morgan…” Alex’s voice cracked as she tried to speak; it was completely hoarse from all the sobbing.

“What about Morgan?” Shandra asked.

“I _hate_ her,” the girl said. “Why is she so mean?”

Shandra sighed. In the short time she had known Morgan, she had seen her become far more distant. It was as if Morgan had slowly been becoming a different person. While she had begun to open up a bit shortly after Shandra had joined the crew, it now seemed like she was actively trying to distance herself room from everyone. For what reasons, Shandra had no idea, but she did notice that Morgan tended to react to things by receding further into her shell.

“She’s… difficult,” Shandra finally said, realizing that she had yet to give Alex an answer. “But she’s a good person.”

_Is she though?_ Shandra found herself doubting her own words. She knew that Morgan had been struggling with her own inner demons, but lately she had been resorting to violence more and more. The way she had lashed out at Dr. Jeremiah, the way she had tried to attack Shandra’s Pokemon, to attack Alex, and now her apparent violent altercation with the rest of the crew. As if on cue, the lights flickered again and another thud sounded in the corridor.

“How can she be a good person?” Alex asked, seeming to agree with Shandra’s internal monologue. “She tried to hurt your Pokemon…”

“Look, she’s just going through some _hard times_ right now. I’m sure she didn’t mean whatever it was that she said to you.” Shandra didn’t really believe it herself, _especially_ considering the continued sounds of struggle outside the room, but she said what she thought Alex needed to hear. At that moment, her only priority was to comfort the girl in her arms.

“That doesn’t just magically make it go away, y’know.” Alex spoke weakly, her voice cracking as she looked up at Shandra. Her tears had dried, but her face still showed signs of their presence. “Words still hurt.”

“Yeah, I know,” Shandra said, pulling the girl back into more of an actual hug. “Are you okay now?”

Alex nodded. “I think so… Thanks.” She took Shandra’s hand in her own and held it close to her heart. “You just had your whole world turned upside down and you’re still worried about me…”

“I care a lot about you,” Shandra playfully told the girl as she rustled her hair. “Of course I’m worried about you.”

“But what about you?” Alex asked, between fits of newfound laughter. “Are _you_ okay?”

“I’m fine,” Shandra quickly answered, but she knew it was a lie. She could feel anger seething inside— anger at Jeremiah, at the other scientists, at herself.

By the look on Alex’s face, it was obvious to Shandra that she didn’t believe her. Shandra felt Alex squeeze her hand tighter. “You’re still the same person to me,” the girl said. “No matter what.”

“I know, it’s just… I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“So? That doesn’t change who you are. It doesn’t change how much you mean to me.” Alex leaned closer as she spoke; Shandra could feel the girl’s messy bangs brush against her skin. “Being with you has made me feel happy for the first time in so long and nothing can change that.”

Slowly, they both leaned closer together. This certainly wasn’t their first kiss, but Shandra felt the anger within her subside as the two leaned in, and closed her eyes in anticipation of what was to come.

**_THUD._ **

Shandra almost immediately opened her eyes, and saw that Alex had done the same. With a look of concern and confusion on their faces, both turned towards the door, the source of the unexpected noise. Dmitri sat atop the two unconscious crewmates he had piled into the doorway. He nodded, gave an awkward little wave, and continued eating his candy bar.

* * *

Morgan lay in her bed, listlessly staring at the ceiling. From the comfort of her locked room, it was clear to her that she preferred _not_ dying. At least, she preferred not dying at the hands of a giant, angry, horrible rock-monster thing, or from the shock of her own apocalyptic visions, anyway. She dared not close her eyes lest she see either memory again, both of which had already burnt their way into her mind regardless. Exhaustion, however, had a different idea. Sighing, she closed her eyes hoping for the sleep she so desperately needed.

_Screaming. Fire. The indescribable smell of charred flesh and the sounds of destruction._

Morgan blinked, trying to wake up, but she was still there. Waves of terrified people ran past her into a tall obsidian temple behind her as she looked out over the consecrated fields of chaos. An ominous, shadowy figure loomed in front of the red sun, raining down flames of death upon the crowds of people desperately trying to escape it. _How could anything cause this much destruction?_ It was hard to see it through the rays of the star behind it and the billowing smoke in front, but she could swear it looked almost human, but… _not_.

Morgan stepped forward, cautiously descending the pyramid-like steps to try and get a better look. The sky burnt a brilliant orange, making the pyramid’s golden highlights shine brightly. The entire planet seemed to be engulfed in flames that spread as far as the horizon. She looked up to see the shadow turn to face her and blast a ball of heat at her. Heart pounding, she closed her eyes and braced for impact…

…and found herself back on the _Helix_. She paused to catch her breath, then looked around at the chaotic state of her own room. _Since when was I this disorganized?_ She scolded herself with incredulity. Morgan got up and began shuffling things around her room when she was interrupted by a knocking at the door. _Oh God, if that’s Alex…_

“Hey, you in there?” Alex asked, cautiously. It was pretty late at night, so the girl was probably trying to avoid waking up the others. It wasn’t too late for Morgan to just… slide back into bed and pretend she didn’t hear her.

“You were talking in your sleep; I came when I heard screaming.” _Damn it. She knows I’m awake._ Morgan was already back in her uncomfortably stiff bed, facing the wall and hiding under the blanket. _I’m acting like such a **child!**_

“I just wanted to see if you were okay, and…” the girl hesitated. _Bullshit. You hate me. I’d hate me. Just leave me alone._ “...and say I’m sorry.”

Morgan felt herself become less tense. She lay there silently wondering if it were possible. Had she simply misheard her? Even so, she slowly got up from the bed again and walked over to the door. Pressing a few buttons at the console, she looked up to see Alex quickly shift from her former position of leaning on the door. She looked so full of guilt, but _why?_

“Why are you apologizing to me?” Morgan said definitively rather than ask, hoping to end the conversation before it went on much longer. “It’s all my fault anyway.”

“No, it’s not,” Alex said, in an attempt to comfort Morgan. She was far beyond that point. She didn’t need comforting. “I know you were acting for the good of the crew, and I’m sorry for letting my own feelings get in the way of that. I guess we can both get carried away by our emotions, huh?”

The girl was smiling. Morgan wasn’t. She couldn’t for the life of her understand why Alex wanted to forgive her, especially considering she couldn’t even forgive herself. But one thing was certain: for whatever her reasons may have been, Alex wasn’t mad at her anymore, and Morgan was at least glad about that. “I’m… I’m sorry too.”

Morgan almost recoiled away as Alex unexpectedly lunged forward for a hug. She honestly didn’t know how to respond to this, and it took her longer than she would have liked to realize that she should probably hug Alex back. The two shared a brief embrace and, although she felt she didn’t really deserve forgiveness, Morgan felt almost happy in a way; Alex was the closest thing she had to a friend at this point.

“It’s pretty late,” Alex said, trying her best to suppress a yawn. “I’mma go back to bed. You should too; you look like you need sleep more than I do.” With a slight chuckle, the girl turned and slipped out of the room.

Morgan sighed as the door slid shut, and she locked it again for good measure. Alex was right, it was late and she should try to get as much decent sleep as possible. Dragging herself back to bed, Morgan hastily smothered herself in her blanket, slowly closed her eyes, and drifted off into a somewhat more peaceful sleep.

* * *

As the _Helix_ flew through the Warp on course for Parisia, Alex and Shandra sat together in the warp lab, each intently working on their own projects. Alex glanced up from the Pokeball she was tinkering with to watch Shandra fiddle around with her personal warp drive, attempting her own modifications on the device. Even though they were working independently, Alex simply enjoyed being in Shandra’s company while she worked.

She smiled, then looked back down at the ball in her hand. The crew had been to several planets over the past few days, and they had damaged many Pokeballs in the process of catching new Pokemon friends. Now that they were on the way back to civilization to do important things again, Alex had decided that it was time to fix them. Her friends always told her that she didn’t have to repair their Pokeballs for them, but Alex enjoyed doing it. She always felt in control when she was tinkering away with the metallic spheres.

With one last adjustment, the ball she was working on flashed, signaling that power had been restored. Alex set it down on the floor and was about to pick up the next when suddenly H burst into the room. The girl’s smile quickly turned into a scowl. _What does he want?_ The cyborg quickly strode across the room toward Shandra, completely ignoring Alex as he passed by, his lab coat billowing behind him as always.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” H said as Shandra stood up to face him. “Initially, it seemed laughably funny. You became, coincidentally, the creator of the Universe, but it works out so well.”

Alex could immediately tell the cyborg’s words were hurtful as she watched Shandra glare back at him, but H, of course, remained blissfully ignorant. _What a jerkface._

“I am here to become the enlightener of Humanity towards their next step in evolution to become the perfection that will begin throughout the Universe,” H continued. “You are the start, yet I am that which is to succeed you and-”

“-And yet you still come in here and compare yourself and your goals to what I _was_ without even bothering to look at what I _am_.” Shandra finished, annoyed. Alex couldn’t help but snicker as the cyborg stood speechless, even if only briefly. “I didn’t ask for this, you know. I’m still the same as I was before we went to that station.”

“Which is precisely why I found it so humorous,” the cyborg stated, straightening himself before continuing. “It wasn’t merely the fact that it was _you_ , but it was also the fact that it _was_ you.”

“... What?” Shandra asked, clearly confused.

“I’m saying that just as you were the beginning, I will be the end. Or, more accurately, the herald of a _new_ beginning. An age of of enlightenment, where I as the chosen one shall-”

“H, just shut up,” Shandra snapped, shaking her head. “Please?”

“And why should I?” H retorted with his usual arrogant tone.

“Because you’re an insufferable prick with a nasty messiah complex?” Shandra offered without skipping a beat.

“... Point taken.”

“Why are you even here?!” Alex yelled from the floor. “Just go away!”

“Merely speaking my mind,” the cyborg answered. He turned to leave the room, his lab coat swishing behind him. “I have said all that is needed, anyway.”

_You don’t get off that easy._ Damaged Pokeball in hand, Alex scrambled to her feet and threw it with all her strength. The ball whizzed past H’s head and collided with the door frame with a loud clank, rebounding somewhere near the warp drive. 

“Whose side are you even on?” H asked angrily, turning back around. “I don’t understand what you’re doing!”

“Whose side are _you_ on!?” Alex snapped back.

“I am on _my_ side, of course. I am on the side of _advancing Humanity_. I am on the side of making _logical decisions_. I am on the side of _making sure we progress as a crew_. But _you_ just seem to do whatever it is you feel like you want to do that day. You go off and attempt to destroy my stuff, but at the same time you go off and somehow miraculously catch that leviathan, you somehow lead us to that Mirror, and out of everyone on this ship you _somehow_ manage to calm Morgan down from her rage. I don’t get what is with you!”

“You don’t give a shit about anyone on this ship but yourself!” Alex screamed.

“Of course not.”

“Then why are you even here!?”

“Because it is a ship. Fate has placed me here and if it wanted me elsewhere I’d move. Fate wants me here with everyone. Everyone here has a beneficial skill that positively affects me.”

“But everyone here _hates_ you! **_I_** hate you!”

“No one in history has **ever** made something happen without being hated. I’m fine with that. Just make sure you announce what you’re going to do before you go and do it. Don’t get lost and electrocuted _again_.”

“Get out!” Alex screamed at the cyborg. “ _Get out! **Get out!**_ ”

H calmly turned and walked out of the room, leaving Alex staring angrily at the closed door. Shandra walked over to her and placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder, motioning for them both to sit back down. She then picked up the discarded Pokeball and gave it back to her. “Try not to let him get to you,” Shandra told the girl. “He... doesn’t understand.”

“Why do you even keep him around? He’s the worst.”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a long time to write, and I’m glad it’s finally done. There were a few new scenes that we added in addition to heavily modifying scenes that we brought over from the original chapter. Additionally, busy schedules prevented this chapter from being written in a timely fashion. But now it is complete and I’m quite proud of it.
> 
> This chapter is basically an altered version of Volume 2, Chapter 20, but instead of showing the crew visiting the planets they visited in that time, we decided to focus on what happened during the time spent traveling between them. We pick up right after the events on the station from the last chapter of Blueshift with a modified version of the med bay scene with Alex and Morgan. In the canon universe, this is where Alex and Morgan made up after Morgan tried to kill the crew’s Pokemon, but as you can see, that didn’t happen here. Because of Morgan’s character shift due to the different way that moment played out in Blueshift, the whole interaction in the med bay was much more confrontational. In turn, that led to Alex running out of the room, and Morgan’s subsequent interaction with H turn violent.
> 
> Then we tastefully cut away to Shandra. This next scene was originally a short interaction between Morgan and Shane in the canon storyline, but this time it’s between Alex and Shandra. Distraught from her not so nice interaction with Morgan, Alex goes to Shandra for comfort. We got to get some more cute interactions between the two, while also working in Shandra being comforted after the revelation of her past, just as Shane was in canon. I also used this as a point to start building toward the next scene.
> 
> The next scene, which takes place after the fight with the Regirock on the planet Prague, serves two purposes: it shows Morgan’s continued personality shift and it also shows Alex and Morgan making up, finally, even if it isn’t to the same extent as in canon. For me, it was important for them to make up because their relationship is a very sisterly one, and Alex wouldn’t stay mad at her. This scene also gives us another take on the vision Morgan got from the Regirock.
> 
> Finally, we conclude with a new version of the scene that closed the original chapter where H went to talk to Shane. This time, Alex is, of course, there with Shandra. Shandra’s reaction is a bit different than Shane’s because, I feel, being with Alex emboldens her a bit since their relationship is stronger than Shane’s was with Morgan. Having Alex in the scene also let us keep in Alex and H’s verbal confrontation that happened during the med bay scene in canon. Since Alex ran out of the room in this chapter, it made sense to move it here.
> 
> As opposed to previous chapters, we wrote some scenes from the perspective of a character that isn’t one of the two characters this series focuses on. Given that Morgan’s personality is shifting from what it was in canon, I thought that giving her some scenes from her perspective would give us a more in-depth look at shift. I am very happy with how those two scenes turned out.


	7. Conference Crashers

“Hey, can you give me a hand with this zipper?” With one hand, Alex held up the dress she had just put on while she fumbled around her back trying to find the zipper with the other. Despite her flexibility, the girl was unable to reach.

“Yeah, one sec,” Morgan answered. Alex glanced over to see her putting on her own dress. Once Morgan was finished, she walked over to Alex and zipped up the back of her dress.

Alex relaxed her arms now that she no longer had to hold onto her clothing. She sighed as she looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. A strapless dress wouldn’t have been the girl’s first choice— in fact, she wouldn’t be wearing a dress at all if not for Councilor Fontaine’s insistence. However, the red gown Alex now found herself wearing was the only one in her size available where the councilor had brought her and Morgan back on Parisia that had met her… needs.  
 _  
That’s one way to put it_ , Alex thought as she looked down at her arms, encased in long red gloves. She felt a swell of shame as she recalled the reason she was wearing them in the first place.

“What is it?” Morgan asked.

“Oh… Uh, nothing…” Alex nervously rearranged her long, dark hair, which she was wearing down for once. Again, she had tonight’s event to blame for that.

“Well, okay,” Morgan said with a tone of incredulity. It was clear to Alex that she really didn’t believe her, but she didn’t press the issue. “Now, how about you zip me up?” Morgan turned around, pointing to the still-open back of her dress.

“Okay,” Alex said. She reached out and pulled up the zipper on Morgan’s blue dress. Morgan had been much more resistant to wearing a dress, but had ultimately agreed. Her outfit tonight was quite a bit more modest than Alex’s, but she had more options available to her.

Now that both of them were dressed, Alex and Morgan exited the bathroom back into the crew’s shared room where their male crewmates were waiting. Dmitri did not appear to mind the fancy suit he was wearing, but H looked completely miserable. “Nice pants,” Alex teased the cyborg.

H grumbled something in response, but Alex couldn’t make it out. The girl giggled as she walked over to her bag. She fished out her Pokeballs and slipped them into the fancy little handbag that came with her dress, then pulled out the small drive Shandra had given her and hung it around her neck. Alex had fashioned it into a necklace with a chain she had bought back on Parisia so she could keep it safe. Shandra was hidden away inside and there was no way she was going to let it out of her sight.

_That just leaves the shoes_. Alex sat down on her bed and slipped her feet into the high heels she got with the dress. It was the first time she had worn shoes of the sort, but she was limited by her choice of dress; she would be tripping over it all night if she wore flats. Carefully, the girl stood up. She took a step forward and began to wobble, but she quickly caught herself.

“Don’t fall over, now,” Morgan warned her.

“How the hell are you supposed to walk in these things?” Alex asked as she attempted to take another step forward. This time, she didn’t wobble.

“You’re the one who picked those shoes…”

Alex ignored her and, instead, focused on walking. The girl began walking back and forth across the room and, thanks to her strong strong sense of balance, she eventually got the hang of walking in heels.

“Are you quite finished messing around?” H asked, standing up with gusto. “Let us get on with this night. The less time I have to spend in these ridiculous clothes the better.”

“We _had_ better get moving,” Morgan agreed. “The opening address is about to begin.” She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Alex followed her out with the rest of the crew, and they all set out toward the _Halcyon_ ’s grand ballroom for the official opening of the Galactic Governance Conference.

* * *

Alex excitedly glanced around the ballroom full of conference goers in their fancy clothes dancing, mingling, and discussing business and politics as she followed her crewmates through the crowd. Never in her life had the girl thought that she would wind up in a place like this. Still feeling euphoric from her victory in her exhibition battle— not to mention Loki evolving into a Meowstic— and caught up with the romantic notion of the ball, Alex found herself yearning for the dance floor, imagining herself waltzing to the music with Shandra. _Silly me_ , the girl caught herself. _What am I thinking? There’s more important things to do right now_.

Realizing she had fallen behind, Alex hastily followed after her friends, pushing past some conference goers. She joined up with them at the bar just as they were greeted by a tall Genevan man whom she could only assume was the Arlon Jett she had heard so much about.

“Long time no see,” the man said. “How’ve things been going on the _Helix_?”

“It’s… been fine,” Morgan answered. Alex knew that really wasn’t entirely true, but things had finally started to get back to some sense of normalcy on the ship. _Maybe everything **is** fine now..._

“ _Really?_ ” Arlon asked. The mercenary didn’t seem to be buying it.

“Look, I don’t really want to talk about it,” Morgan told him. “But we’re here now and focused on the job.”

“Right, let’s get down to business then,” Arlon said, his tone shifting. “This is what I was able to figure out: the weapon is in the possession of one of the Genevan councilors in attendance. Unfortunately, I don’t know which one. We’ll need to snoop around and figure out who has the weapon.”

“Do you know what we’re looking for?” Morgan asked him.

“It’s some sort of device, probably small and portable,” Arlon explained. “I don’t know exactly how it works, but it’s powerful enough to hack into whatever it’s connected to.”

“So, I guess the next step is to figure out which councilors are in attendance,” Morgan suggested.

“Already done,” Arlon told her, pulling out his Pokedex. “I’ve narrowed down the list to a few who could potentially have the device. I just sent it to your Pokedex. I narrowed it down to eight names. Actually, make that seven, since I assume Councilor Fontaine is clean since she was your ticket in.”

“Right,” Morgan agreed. “It’s likely not her.”

“That’s what I thought. So that leaves us with Finnegan and Guinness of New Britain, Heinkel of New Germany, Moretti of New Italy,  Narváez of New Spain, Nilsson of New Sweden, and Zabat of New Greece. Narrowing the list down shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve got Rena and Kiril working an angle now but if you lot want to narrow it down on your own, that will be helpful.”

“I think we can do that,” Morgan told him. “But our main plan is to get Shandra into the ship’s computer systems to help us out from the inside. While we talk to the councilors in the ballroom, Alex here will sneak out and find a place where she can get Shandra in.”

Alex perked up at the mention of her name. She noticed that Arlon had turned his attention toward her. “My replacement, I take it?” the mercenary asked. “You lot never were that great at sneaking around, were you?” he added with a laugh. “Good luck, kid.”

“Hey! I’m not a kid!” Alex responded indignantly. _I hate being called that._

“Relax, luv. I was around your age when I entered this line of work. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to meet with some _lovely_ politicians.” With that, Arlon finished off his drink, then left the bar.

“Alright, Alex, we’re going to chat with the councilors on this list if we can find them,” Morgan said once Arlon was gone. “Why don’t you go see if you can find a way to get Shandra into the system?”

“Got it,” Alex replied. She parted ways with her crewmates and moved through the crowd, searching for somewhere to slip out unnoticed. Alex clutched the small drive hanging around her neck tightly. Shandra had entrusted her with it and, by extension, herself, and she intended to keep it close and well protected. Alex checked several corridors leading away from the public areas, but all of them were watched by guards. _Damn guards are everywhere..._

After several more minutes of searching, Alex spotted what looked like an open path and made her move. Unfortunately, a guard suddenly appeared from around a corner and grabbed her by the arm. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

_Damn it_ , Alex cursed in her head. _Okay, let’s see._ “Uh… I was trying to find the bathroom,” the girl lied.

“Bathroom’s that way, miss,” the guard informed her, pointing back toward the public area.

“Right,” Alex said with a nervous laugh. “Thanks.” She turned and made her way to the bathroom to look convincing. Inside, she took a look around to see if there was any means of escape. The girl noticed a small vent in the ceiling she thought she could probably fit into, but then she remembered what she was wearing. “Damn it, if only I wasn’t wearing this stupid dress,” Alex grumbled, looking down at the red gown clinging to her small figure. _There’s got to be a way.  
_  
Once an appropriate amount of time passed, Alex exited the bathroom and resumed her search for a way into the more secure areas. Eventually she lucked out and managed to slip past some guards down a secure hallway. The girl moved quickly and quietly down the hall, taking extra care to make sure her heels weren’t too loud. Alex saw many rooms with computers in them as she moved further down the corridor, but there were also security personnel. _Can’t do it in there. I need to find another way.  
_  
With the rooms out of the question, Alex began to look around for something else she could use to get Shandra into the system. She noticed some important looking cables running along the walls and decided to follow them. _Hopefully these lead somewhere._ Eventually, the cables fed into some sort of utility box which seemed like it might be a good place to get Shandra inside.

Alex walked up to the box and, with little effort, managed to hack open the lock. Inside, she saw various switches and knobs, but, luckily, there were also a few ports that were compatible with the drive. The girl removed it from around her neck, but before she could get Shandra into the system, she heard footsteps approaching. She quickly but silently shut the box, then ducked into a nearby broom closet to hide.

From inside the closet, Alex heard the footsteps stop in front of the box just as it began creaking back open. _Shit_ , the thought raced through her mind. Thinking fast, she quickly released her Lampent. “Lumiera, I need you to sneak up on that guy and lead him away,” the girl whispered to her Pokemon. “Once you lead him far enough away, go invisible and then meet me back at the ballroom.”

The Lampent phased through the wall and, a few moments later, Alex heard shouting in the corridor. “Hey! Hey, get back here!” A man shouted. Once she heard the sound of footsteps running away, Alex made her move. She rushed back to the box and inserted the drive into one of the ports.

“I’m in,” Shandra’s voice sounded in Alex’s earpiece. 

“Okay. I’m gonna take the drive out now,” Alex replied. “I need to get out of here.” She quickly pulled the drive out and locked the box back up, then made her way back to the ballroom.

Upon returning, the girl looked around for her crewmates, but she was unable to locate them in the crowd. Alex moved to the edge of the room near the passageway where she had snuck out and waited for her Lampent to return. Several moments passed, and still the Pokemon did not return. Alex began to fear that something bad had happened.

“Guys, Lumiera still hasn’t come back yet,” Alex informed her crewmates over the comms, her voice full of worry. “I had her lead the guards away, but it’s been over fifteen minutes and she still hasn’t come back.”

“I’ll see if I can find anything on the cameras,” Shandra responded. _Surely she can find her from inside the computer_ , Alex thought. “Your Lampent got captured and is being taken somewhere else,” Shandra informed her a few minutes later. “I’m gonna see if I can figure out where.”

“We need to rescue her!” Alex cried out. She quickly hushed herself, noticing several nearby conference goers giving her strange looks.

“We need to know where they took your Pokemon first,” Shandra told her. The comms went silent, and Alex assumed that Shandra was working on finding out Lumiera’s location, but after a while, something seemed off.

“Hello?” Alex asked. “Shandra?”

Silence. _Oh no, not her too!_

“Shandra, are you there!?”

“Alex, just calm down,” Morgan’s voice sounded on the comms. “We don’t want to make a scene. Let’s just… regroup at the room and figure out or next move.”

* * *

Back in the room, Alex paced impatiently back and forth, waiting to hear from Shandra. The others sat around the room with expressions of varying degrees of worry on their faces. It had been well over an hour since they had lost contact with Shandra and they really didn’t know what to do. Alex anxiously clutched at the drive hanging around her neck.

“We should have heard from her by now,” Alex said to her crewmates, but the room remained silent. “What if something bad happened? She could be hurt, or-”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Morgan said, trying to sound reassuring, but Alex could tell she didn’t really believe that.

“Hey, guys, can you hear me?” Shandra’s voice finally sounded over the comms a few moments later.

“Oh my God, are you okay?!” Alex shouted. “Are you hurt?! What happened?!”

“I’m fine,” Shandra answered. “I may have made a few friends in the virus quarantine, but I’m out now and I’m in the security mainframe.”

“Did you find Lumiera yet!?” Alex asked. Now that she knew Shandra was safe, all the girl’s worry was focused on her Pokemon.

“I just got into the mainframe,” Shandra told her. “Give me a minute and I should be able to find her.” Several more minutes passed before Shandra reported her findings. “Alright, I’ve located Lumiera. She’s being held in the detention block, but she’s gonna be difficult to retrieve now. We should come back for her later.”

“No! We need to get her out right now!” Alex cried out.

“Okay, okay. Jeeze. But, like I said, the room is going to be hard to get to. I sent you guys the location.”

“Alright, let’s go!” Alex shouted, running for the door.

Morgan quickly grabbed the girl’s arm. “Wait, you’re just going to get captured yourself,” she warned.

“But I need to save her!” Alex cried, tears starting to form under her eyes. “It’s my fault she’s stuck in there!”

“Just calm down. We can’t just rush in there. We need to come up with a plan.”

“We could just try asking for it,” Dmitri suggested.

“That’s it!” Alex exclaimed. She quickly bolted out of the room before anyone could stop her.

“Wait, where are you going?!” the sound of Morgan’s voice followed after her.

Alex didn’t care; she knew what she had to do. She rushed down the hall to the security desk, intentionally working herself up as she approached. She was already quite distressed over Lumiera’s capture so putting on a convincing show was easy for her. “My Lampent ran off,” she cried to the guard at the desk. “I don’t know what happened… I think she may have gotten in trouble, she hasn’t come back yet!” The guard looked at her with an annoyed expression, like he really didn’t want to have to deal with her. “Please, you have to find her!” Alex told the guard as tears started rolling down her cheeks.

“I’ll put in a note to security,” the man responded. “But no promises.” He typed a brief message  and sent it off, returning with an answer a few moments later. “Yeah, they have one in the detention block.”

“Please, I need her back!”

“Fine,” the guard sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

Shandra smiled as she watched Alex through the security feeds. From within the _Halcyon_ ’s mainframe, she had been able to monitor Lumiera’s trip from the detention block to her crewmates’ room. Seeing Alex reunited with her ghostly friend brought warm feelings to Shandra’s heart. The more time she spent with Alex, the more Shandra realized just how deep the girl’s bond with her Pokemon ran.

Suddenly, a thread of messages flashed past Shandra. It appeared that the _Halcyon_ ’s security forces would be keeping an eye on Alex now that her Pokemon had gotten into trouble. Shandra quickly hopped on the comms to pass the information along. “Judging from the communications I intercepted, they’re gonna be watching you from now on,” she addressed Alex specifically. “Just try not to do anything illegal for the rest of the conference.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex’s voice sounded in Shandra’s ear.

“No, Alex, It’s okay. You did a good job,” she reassured the girl. “I don’t think there’s much more you guys can do right now,” she continued, this time addressing the entire crew. “It’s late, so why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll go through the security footage overnight and let you guys know what I find in the morning.”

And that is exactly what Shandra did. Over the course of the night, she poured over the ship’s cargo and security logs. She checked up on all the councilors on the list Morgan had provided, and reviewed the cargo they had brought along and all the security footage of them, and slowly crossed them off. By the wee hours of the morning, she had narrowed the list down to only two names: Robert Heinkel of New Germany and Anders Nilsson of New Sweden.  
 _  
Now to wait for everyone to wake up._

* * *

The next day, Shandra listened in as her crewmates hatched a plan with Arlon. Thanks to her hard work during the night, they were very close to achieving their objective. Now, Arlon was heading down to the cargo hold to get a better look at what Heinkel and Nilsson had stored there. Shandra had just seen him leave the hotel area, but now she wasn’t able to locate him on the security feeds.

“Alright, I’m going through Nilsson’s cargo now,” the mercenary suddenly announced over the comms.

“You’re in the cargo hold already?” Shandra asked in surprise. “I don’t see you.”

“I know how to avoid the cameras, luv,” Arlon replied.

_Damn, he’s good._ “Right, so what’s in the councilor’s cargo?”

“One box has some sort of credit mining machine in it, presumably for a later presentation. The other one’s empty. Find out if Nilsson is presenting. I’m gonna check out Heinkel’s cargo in the meantime.”

“Got it,” Shandra replied. She quickly looked over the conference schedule and spotted Nilsson on the list for the day. She then checked the security feeds and saw some sort of machinery being removed from the councilor’s box in the cargo hold. “Alright, he’s scheduled to give a presentation in about an hour. They moved whatever was in that box out for it.”

“He’s probably clean then,” Arlon responded.

“It must be Heinkel then,” Morgan suggested.

“We can’t say for sure,” Arlon told her. “We need to find some substantial evidence before we go after- what the bloody _fuck?_ ” He suddenly interrupted himself.

“What?” Morgan asked. “What is it?”

“This,” the mercenary answered. A moment later, Shandra received the image of a very suspicious, large metallic cylinder with a screen and several wires on it sitting inside the box. 

“That… looks bad,” Alex commented. “Like, if this was a movie that would be the-”

“Bomb?” Morgan finished.

“Shit,” Arlon responded. “I did not see this one coming. This means Heinkel more than likely has the device we’re looking for. It’s definitely not here though. I need you guys to find the councilor and keep him occupied while I search his room. Shandra, wipe me off the camera footage. I’m about to alert the guards to this bomb.”

A few moments later, Shandra spotted Arlon swiftly walking down a hallway toward the hotel area of the ship. “Is the councilor in his room?” he asked once he arrived at his destination.

“No, Morgan and Dmitri are talking to him now,” Shandra answered, spotting her crewmates keeping Heinkel occupied.

“Alright, I’m entering the room now.”

“Hurry up, the councilor is leaving,” Shandra told the mercenary, spotting Heinkel break off conversation with Morgan and Dmitri.

“I’ve got it,” Arlon announced.

“The councilor is en route to his room,” Shandra warned him, watching Heinkel drawing near. Arlon emerged a moment later, and not a minute too soon; Shandra watched the mercenary pass Heinkel in the hallway on his way out of the hotel area.

* * *

Within the _Halcyon_ ’s mainframe, Shandra sat monitoring the security feeds, flipping back and forth between the auditorium where her crewmates were scheduled to present shortly and the cargo hold where the Red Suns were examining the bomb Arlon had discovered in councilor Heinkel’s cargo crate. Growing bored of watching the Red Suns poke around at the bomb, Shandra turned her attention back to the auditorium to see that Councilor Pennwood had finished speaking and Councilor Fontaine was now introducing the crew.

Shandra tapped into the audio system for the room just as the councilor turned the podium over to Morgan. “We have developed an advanced method of cybernetic augmentation to the Human body, opening a wide range of possibilities,” the young Genevan woman explained to the captive audience. “Through a process of infusing cybernetics into human DNA we have been able to increase the number of augmentations the body can handle as well as the power that they can output. Additionally, we have removed the threat of augmentation shock through the development of an immunity to electricity. And now our gracious volunteer, Subject H, would like to speak with you about his experiences.”

Morgan stepped back from the podium, allowing H to take over. The cyborg briefly cleared his throat, then dove right into his speech. “People of this ship, today is the day that Humanity takes its next evolutionary step towards perfection,” he declared. “Throughout our recent history, we have prevented all forms of evolution from taking place in our society. Our reasons for this are beyond justified, but that does not change our genetic stagnation. We have grown complacent with our physical failings and focused on improving our mind, leaving our body the same as it has been for the past millennia. Today, I propose we use our minds to change that.”

He paused momentarily to take a breath, then jumped right back in.

“Many of you may be wondering why I look different from the average Human. But you would be wrong, for today I look more Human than anyone ever has in our entire history. Today, you witness a man with cybernetic DNA— part primal Human, part the brainchild of Humanity. Cybernetic DNA is the perfect marriage of our past heritage and present ideas. It is a marriage that leads to a bright and shining future. So, join me, become one with this idea and spread it to the Universe so that we may all join in this incredible union of evolutionary progress.”

Shandra sighed. H was just as over the top as always. Shandra watched as a volunteer from the audience released an Electabuzz to test out the limits of H’s power. The crowd went wild when the cyborg was unscathed, and even more so when he used his command of electrical energy to produce a song. That got a surprised laugh from Shandra. Despite her distaste for H, she had to admit that the cyborg had truly captured the attention of the audience. 

To wrap up, Morgan began fielding questions from the audience, but was cut short when the ship suddenly rocked and the power blipped off for a second across several sections of the ship. _What the hell was that?_ Shandra quickly scanned the security feeds to find the source of the disturbance.

Before she could get the chance to figure out what was going on, Shandra saw a dozen warriors in red and black mechanized power armor wielding Aegislashes burst into the auditorium through a wall panel. Romanov Supremacy Knight Commandos— Shandra had heard about them from the news. The soldiers quickly moved through the room, dispatching the security forces. Shortly afterwards, Captain Heilovic stepped into the room through the hole in the wall, flanked by two Bisharps. “Passengers of the _GCS Halcyon_ ,” he announced. “This _political summit_ is now a _military operation_.”

_Crap_ , Shandra thought. _How the hell did he find us?_

The Knight Commandos moved to block the exits, leaving the crowd, along with Shandra’s crewmates trapped. Shandra watched Alex discretely slip off the stage and blend into the crowd while the soldiers weren’t looking. _What are you doing Alex?_ she thought with worry.

“What the bloody hell is going on up there!?” Arlon’s voice suddenly sounded over the comms.

“The Supremacists are here!” Shandra replied.

“ _Shit_. What’s the situation?” the mercenary asked.

“The rest of the crew is trapped in the presentation hall by a squad of heavily armored soldiers. I’m only seeing twelve on the security feeds, plus Captain Heilovic.”

“Understood,” Arlon responded. “We need to deal with this bomb first. Once it’s taken care of, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Sit tight.”

Shandra turned her attention back to the security feed just in time to see Heilovic leaving the auditorium with Heinkel and a pair of Knight Commandos. Meanwhile H, Morgan, and Dmitri began moving toward each other. Suddenly, H threw his arms around his two crewmates as a robotic third arm emerged from under his shirt holding two smoke bombs. The cyborg quickly threw one up at the ceiling and one down at the floor beneath them. He then lifted his leg and fired it at the doorway. It magnetized to the wall, then H retracted it, pulling him and his crewmates across the room. They flew over the Commandos guarding the door, then made a break for it. Alex immediately bolted out from the crowd after them, but as she reached the door, one of the Commandos grabbed her. Shandra tensed up, but breathed a sigh of relief as the girl slipped out of the Romanov’s grasp and ran out the door.

Now that her crewmates weren’t in any immediate danger, Shandra turned her focus toward getting communications online. The _Halcyon_ had been blocking outgoing communication, but now that its location had been compromised, Shandra thought it was imperative that they call for help as soon as possible. As she worked, Shandra glanced at the security feed and saw that her crewmates had regrouped. Alex appeared to be freaking out about something, but without audio, she had no idea what was happening.

“Arlon here,” the familiar voice sounded over the comms suddenly. Shandra remained focused on her task, but listened to what he had to say. “We ran into a bit of situation down here. These Supremacist bastards are hard to take down. We ran in with just two of them and it was almost too much. What’s the situation like up there? Tell me you’ve escaped.”

“Yeah, we made it out,” Morgan responded him. “We’re in the residential area.”

“That’s a relief,” Arlon replied.

With a little more effort, Shandra deactivated the systems blocking outside communication to the ship. “You’ll be happy to know that I’ve managed to help get communications online,” she announced over the comms.

“Excellent work,” Arlon told her. “I’ll call the _Corsair_. See if you can’t get a hold of the Federation.”

Shandra was about to follow Arlon’s suggestion when she spotted Heilovic angrily shouting into his comm system. “Hold up,” she said. “I’ve got Heilovic on the security feed. He seems to be responding to someone on their comms. I don’t think he found what he was looking for. It would be a huge help if we could hear what they were saying.”

“We’ve got two unconscious Supremacists down here,” Arlon replied. “This will be no problem. Kiril, take this helmet. Let me know what they’re saying.”

There was a brief moment of silence before Arlon spoke again. “Heilovic’s headed your way. Watch out.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” Shandra told him. “If you could get your team over to the residential area-”

“We’re already on our way.”

* * *

Alex ran after Morgan as the two rushed to the _Halcyon_ ’s med bay. They were headed there to collect a bunch of supplies H had requested for whatever crazy scheme he had cooked up, but that was the last thing on the Sinai girl’s mind at the moment. All she could think about was Loki; her Meowstic had been snatched away from her by that Romanov soldier when she fled the auditorium. _I hope he’s okay_. She dreaded what fate might befall her Pokemon.

As soon as they arrived at the med bay, Morgan immediately began collecting the supplies H sent them to find. “Why do we need all this crap?” Alex asked anxiously, still thinking about her missing Pokemon.

“H has a plan,” Morgan answered. “I don’t know what it is, but at least we have one.”

“I hope it works…” _We should be trying to get Loki back, not following one of H’s stupid plans._

“I’ve got everything,” Dmitri sounded over the comms.

“Excellent,” came H’s reply. “Meet up in the pool room. What’s the status of those sedatives?”

“We’ve got them,” Morgan responded as she grabbed the last of the sedatives.

“Alright, I got through to the _Halberd_ ,” Shandra announced just as Morgan was preparing to hand Alex a pile of sedatives. “Graves is sending the Third Fleet. There’s not really much else I can do from in here, so I think it’s time I got out.”

“Shandra can you get here?” Morgan asked. “Alex, plug that drive into that computer so she can find us.” Alex nodded, then ran over to the computer and jammed Shandra’s drive into the first port she saw.

“I see it,” Shandra said a few moments later. “I’m working my way to you.”

“Hurry up,” H pitched in.

“I can only go so fast,” Shandra responded. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

A few minutes later, Shandra sprung out of the computer, grabbing the drive and yanking it out in the process. Despite the urgent situation, Alex was glad to see her in person once again. They shared a very brief embrace before gathering up the last of the sedatives and exiting the med bay.

* * *

“There is no way this plan is going to work,” Shandra said as she and Morgan waited for the arrival of the Knight Commandos across the hallway from the pool. H had already broadcasted their location to the Romanov soldiers, so it was only a matter of time before they showed up.

“H _has_ come through for us before,” Morgan offered.

“But there’s no way these Knight Commandos can be _that_ stupid, right?”

“We’ll just have to wai- hold on. Here they come.”

The pair quickly ducked back as a squad of five Knight Commandos passed the doorway, en  route to the pool room. Peering out after the soldiers had passed, Shandra noticed that one of them was holding what was obviously one of Alex’s modded Pokeballs. “Five Knight Commandos headed your way,” she whispered into the comms. “One of them has Alex’s Pokeball.

“Got it,” Arlon replied. “I’ll make a move for it when I get the chance.”

Shandra watched the Commandos stop outside the door to the pool room and begin powering up their shields. “I knew they weren’t gonna fall for it,” she said to Morgan. “What do you want to do?”

“Let’s just wait and see what happens.”

After several minutes, the Romanov soldiers finally entered the room. Suddenly there was a shout, followed by several loud crashes. “I take it that’s our cue,” Shandra said. She pulled out a Pokeball and began running for the pool room with Morgan close behind. “C.A.L.I., use Topsy-Turvy!” Shandra commanded her Inkay as she released her. The Pokemon fired a blast of warpy energy at one of the Commandos, which caused his armor to short out. The armored soldier collapsed into the pool, joining two more that had already been knocked in.

Suddenly, Arlon leapt off of his Aggron’s back, landing behind one the Commandos still standing. The mercenary quickly nabbed Alex’s Pokeball off the soldier before he knew what was happening. “Hey, kid!” Arlon shouted Alex. “Catch!” He jumped back, out of the Commando’s reach as he moved to attack, then tossed the ball to Alex.

The girl reached out and caught the ball, then quickly placed it on her belt. She then reached for another, releasing Leviathan. The mighty Pokemon filled the room with storm clouds and it began to rain. “Use Thunder!” Alex shouted. Leviathan cast down a giant bolt of lightning which struck the water as H unleashed one of his own from the pool’s center. The entire pool sparked, violently shorting out the armor of the three Romanovs inside it.

H quickly jumped out of the water as Kiril Zhukov pulled a frost cannon off his back. “Stand back!” the Romanov shouted as he took aim. Once everyone was clear, he fired the cannon at the pool, causing the whole thing freezes over and leaving the Commandos and their Pokemon trapped.

The two remaining Commandos rushed at Shandra’s Inkay. One landed a punch, but the small Pokemon managed to avoid the second. _Hang in their C.A.L.I._ , Shandra thought as she dropped into warp space to prepare for an attack from behind. As she moved through the swirls of violet and red, she saw shadowy distortions of the battle; one of the Commandos appeared to be taken down, so she moved in toward the other, then dropped back into real space behind him. She struck the Aegislash in the Romanov’s hand before he could get the chance to block.

“You’ve lost this one,” Arlon said to the Commando as he closed in with his two Pokemon. “We’ve got you surrounded. Stand down.”

“You are not my commanding officer,” the Commando replied coldly. “You are not Romanov.” He then took a swing at Shandra, but she instinctively teleported out of the way. _Better luck next time, pal._

“Wrong move, mate,” Arlon told the Commando.

“C.A.L.I., use Topsy-Turvy!” Shandra commanded her Inkay from safety. The Pokemon blasted the Commando with another wave of warpy energy, shorting out his shields and weakening his armor plating.

“Jiraiya, finish him off!” Arlon then ordered his Greninja. “Water Shuriken!” The Greninja threw a bunch of watery projectiles at the Commando, four of which hit him dead on, knocking him to the ground. The Romanov soldier tried to get back up, but Arlon placed his foot on the his back and pushed him back down. “You should’ve _fucking_ surrendered, mate.” The mercenary kicked the man in the head, knocking him out cold.

“I am hearing on comm that Federation fleet is here,” Kiril announced to the group as a wave of Romanov chatter came in. “Heilovic is going to ‘Plan B.’ They are evacuating.”

“I don’t like the sound of that…” Arlon said.

As if on cue, Petra, Arlon’s recently arrived lieutenant, radioed in from the cargo hold. “Arlon, we’ve got a problem,” the Romanov woman said with urgency. “The timer on the bomb just activated.”

“ _Shit_. How much time is left?”

“Five minutes.”

“Arlon, if zat bomb goes off it will react with the warp drive of every ship in the Federation fleet,” Rena warned him. “We ‘ave to disarm it.”

“Goddamn it!” Arlon shouted, “Matt, hail the Federation fleet, warn them about the bomb, tell them to keep their distance.”

“Got it, boss,” the Red Suns’ pilot responded.

“Petra, we’re on our way to you now. Everyone else, fall back to the _Corsair_! You’ve got five minutes!”

* * *

Shandra felt out of breath as the group arrived at the cargo hold. After hearing about the bomb, they had made a mad dash across the _Halcyon_. Looking at the others, she could tell they were equally winded. Her attention then fell on the bomb, which displayed four minutes on the timer.

“We need to disarm this thing _now!_ ” Arlon shouted.

Shandra quickly ran up to the bomb to get a better look. “It looks like this bomb is designed to create an unstable warp explosion,” she told the group after a cursory examination of the device. “I’m going to focus on keeping the Warp stable and try to buy us some time.” Her mark began glowing fiercely as she concentrated her energy on the bomb.

“Can we find a way to disconnect the warp core and get it out of here?” Arlon asked.

“There’s no way. If we try to disconnect something, it could cause the bomb to explode,” H told the mercenary.

“We don’t have time for this,” Petra warned them. “We need to get out of here now.”

“We ‘ave to do something,” Rena responded. “Ze ramifications of zis ship exploding…”

“It will not be so easy,” Kiril pointed out. “This is beautiful bomb. Very advanced technology.”

“But wasn’t it the Red Suns who made that warp gate virus?” Shandra asked.

“From what I understand, Garth acquired that virus from…” Arlon trailed off.

“From who?” Shandra asked, although, in the back of her mind, she already knew the answer. _Who else could it be?_

“From Mr. Silver,” Arlon answered. “The tech in this bomb feels too much like him. He has to be involved. When we get out of here, we need to take that son of a bitch down.”

“We need to deal with this bomb first,” Morgan told him.

“Well, if you have any bloody ideas on how to disarm it, by all means!” Arlon shouted.

The room rapidly devolved into a shouting match of contradicting theories about disarming the bomb. All the while, the timer slowly ticked away. _This is getting us nowhere_ , Shandra thought as the argument grew increasingly heated. _We’re running out of time._

“What are you-?” Morgan suddenly asked. Shandra looked over to see Alex press a Pokeball to the bomb. The room fell silent as it was pulled inside the ball.

Boop.

The ball began glowing in Alex’s hand.

_Boop._  
  
Shandra watched the girl’s hand trembling as the glow grew ever brighter.

**_Boop._ **

Alex’s face was full of pain and terror. Thinking quickly, Shandra grabbed the ball out of the girl’s hand; it was burning hot to the touch. Ignoring the pain, Shandra jumped into the nearest computer she could find and threw the ball away before popping back to the real world. “I left it inside the computer,” she informed rest of the team. “I think that’s all we can do.”

“Right, let’s get out of here,” Arlon agreed. “Everyone fall back to the _Corsair_.”

The team ran as fast as they could to where the Red Suns’ frigate was docked and quickly climbed aboard. “Matt, get us out of here!” Arlon shouted as they ran to the bridge.

“Already on it,” the pilot responded.

“Sir, I’m getting some strange readings from the _Halcyon_ ’s warp drive,” one of the bridge crew announced as the team arrived on the bridge. “It seems to be powering up.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“No, sir.”

“Can we hail them?” Shandra asked.

“Go ahead,” Arlon told her, opening a channel to the _Halcyon_.

“Hello, can anyone hear me?” Shandra asked.

“This is the Halcyon. We’re in the midst of evacuations.”

“Is there any chance you could conduct evacuations without the power on?”

“That would turn off life support.”

“Right. Can you cut power to just the warp drive, then?”

“We’ll try deactivating it.”

“Sir, the Supremacist ship is leaving,” Matt announced.

“Follow that bastard,” Arlon ordered him.

The pilot altered course in pursuit of the _RSS Envy_ as the Romanov ship fired a volley of shots at the _Halcyon_ , the nearest Federation ship, and the _Corsair_ itself. Matt quickly rolled the sip, avoiding the incoming fire.

Arlon sat down at one of the gun controls and took aim at the _Envy_. “All hands, man the guns,” he ordered over the comms. “Take down that Romanov ship!” Shandra watched out the viewport as a massive volley of laser fire raced toward the _Envy_. Explosions detonated all along the Romanov destroyer, crippling the engines. “Burn in hell, you son of a bitch.”

“The readings off the _Halcyon_ ’s warp drive are getting really weird,” the same crewman from before announced.

“Get us out of here!” Arlon ordered Matt. The pilot fired up the warp drive and jumped away as another of the _Envy_ ’s engines exploded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a really fun chapter to write for me. It was cool to take the four chapter arc in canon that covered the Conference and smash it all together into one chapter, making clever uses of perspective to keep things from getting too long. Showing large portions of the action through Shandra’s perspective in the mainframe was fun, and it showed how scenes that were written separately, but happened at the same time lined up with each other. It also let me to cut out a lot of length. A lot of the content here is very similar to the origin chapters, albeit with more detail, but the Conference is such a turning point in the narrative that it had to be included. In writing this it was really only a matter of cutting out scenes that didn’t need to be there, such as the exhibition battles, some of the planning scenes, the pre-conference scenes on Parisia, and some of the scenes that were from H’s perspective. I also cut out a lot of the meat from the Red Suns scenes by just showing Shandra’s glimpses through the security feeds.
> 
> The only completely original scene I included was the one I opened the chapter with. Given that this is a fancy conference, at least during the evening balls, I decided to play around with the crew’s clothing for some comedy and character development. It was briefly mentioned that Alex was wearing a dress for the ball in the original chapters, but I felt like expanding on it for some reason. I had this mental image of her outfit and kinda just wanted to include it, but it does show some of her personality how she wore something that was way more girly than what she likes to wear in order to keep her scars hidden.
> 
> Overall, I’m very proud of how this chapter turned out. From here on out, things are going to start taking a big turn away from the canon so it’s going to be fun to take the plot in new and interesting places. In a way, this super chapter is like a last hurrah for the chapters that pull heavily from the original story.


	8. Fallout

Everything was quiet aboard the _Corsair_.

The Alliance-make heavy frigate flew through warp space, full of an air of uncertainty; none of its passengers knew what fate had befallen the _Halcyon_. All they could do was wait until the ship reached its destination. Shandra sat in an occupied seat on the bridge, gazing out into the Warp and holding Alex, who was seated on the front edge of the chair, tightly. The Sinai girl had said very little over the past few hours and it was quite obvious to Shandra that she was rather shaken up. Shandra, for her part, was feeling a bit more relaxed, but she was still worried about all the people back on the _Halcyon_.

Suddenly, Shandra’s view changed as the _Corsair_ dropped out of warp space. Arlon immediately began flipping through the galactic news stations for information on the Conference. The sounds of panicked reports and wild speculation about the incident flooded the bridge; things did not sound good. Shandra stood up, allowing Alex to slide back in the seat, so that she could see the viewscreen. She felt herself fill with horror at the chaos unfolding before her eyes, which had begun welling with tears. The region of space once occupied by the _Halcyon_ was scattered with debris, bits of ships warped— no, _glitched_ — together. No whole ships remained. Horror turned to anger as Shandra fell to her knees. “What have I done?”

“If you ‘adn’t done what you did zen zere would almost certainly be nothing left,” Rena told her in an attempt to comfort her. Despite already knowing this, it helped a bit to hear someone else say it.

Rena’s words were followed by a thud as Arlon angrily punched the wall. “That still doesn’t change the fact that all those people died!” The Red Suns’ leader stormed off the bridge, kicking the door frame on the way out; his steel-toed boot clanked loudly off the hard metal.

“What crawled up his ass?” Matt asked, eliciting cold looks from the rest of the room.

“You are such a-” Rena stopped herself. “I ‘ad best see if ‘e is alright.” She walked off the bridge after Arlon, leaving the _Helix_ crew to sit in silence with the remaining lieutenants.

In the long silence, all Shandra could do was stare at the news reports. _You did what you could_ , she kept trying to tell herself, but the thought of all those lives lost still hurt. Eventually, Shandra was able to pick herself back up off the floor. She walked back to her seat and settled down with Alex, who immediately clung to her arm. Shandra had no idea what to do next and, judging from their faces, her crewmates and the remaining Red Suns didn’t either.

Finally, Morgan broke the silence. “Do you mind if we contact our ship?” she asked, looking over at Kiril and Petra.

“Go right ahead,” Petra told her. The Romanov woman nodded in the direction of the communications console and Morgan walked over to it. The communications crewman stepped aside and allowed her to call the _Helix_. Shandra watched from her seat as Minerva’s face appeared on the viewscreen. She calmly remained silent. Given the situation, the _Helix_ ’s pilot refrained from one of her typical quips.

“Minerva?” Morgan asked.

“Mhm?” the pilot responded.

“We need you to come pick us up,” Morgan told her.

“Alright. Send me your location. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Morgan transmitted the _Corsair_ ’s coordinates to Minerva, then hung up. Shandra watched Morgan turn away from the console, then, after briefly looking at her Pokedex and scowling, wander off the bridge. The _Corsair_ ’s bridge fell silent once more as Shandra leaned her head on Alex; it was going to be a long few hours before the _Helix_ arrived.

* * *

Arlon leaned against the wall in the _Helix_ ’s mess area, waiting for his former crewmates to get settled so that he could discuss their next move with them. The mercenary glanced around at his old ship. Even though they had only had the _Helix_ for a short time before he left to rejoin the Red Suns, Arlon couldn’t help but feel a bit sentimental. It hadn’t been that long ago that Arlon had first met the ship’s crew back on Gigan Station, but so much had happened since then that it felt like a lifetime ago.

The Red Suns’ leader looked down at the cyber-weapon in his hand. _Hopefully this thing can finally end all this_ , he thought. Arlon knew he would be able to rest a lot easier once Mr. Silver was dealt with.

At the sound of clanking feet on the ship’s metal floor, Arlon looked up to see Morgan and Shandra walking into the room. Arlon was a bit surprised that the two women were the only members of the _Helix_ crew to join him, but, regardless, it was time to get to business. “First things first,” the mercenary said as he stepped forward and placed the cyber-weapon on the table. “Let’s figure out how this bloody thing works. You’re the technology people, what do you make of it?”

Shandra picked it up off the table and looked at it for a few minutes. “It looks like it can extract data somehow,” she concluded. “I’ll know more if I can get inside and have a look.”

“Go ahead, luv,” Arlon told her. He knew that if anyone could figure the cyber-weapon out, it would be Shandra. The blue-haired girl nodded, then assumed digital form and jumped into the device.

As he waited for Shandra to return, Arlon looked over at Morgan. By the expression on her face, she seemed a bit agitated. Well, more so than usual, at least. It seemed like something was troubling the young woman, but Arlon remembered her reaction back on the _Halcyon_ and decided not to press the issue.

The silence was starting to grow a bit uncomfortable, but, luckily, Shandra popped back out of the device a few moments later. “This… is some pretty advanced software,” she reported. “I’m an AI and even _I_ don’t know how it works. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I don’t think it’s entirely Human-made.”

“Like you?” Morgan asked.

“Yeah…”

_Wait, what?_ Arlon’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What have I missed?”

“It’s… a long story,” Shandra told him. “Let’s just say that in our travels we’ve come across a lot of evidence of a very ancient and highly advanced civilization.”

It wasn’t _exactly_ an answer, but Arlon was smart enough to put two and two together. _Clearly she’s based on some kind of ancient technolog_ y, the mercenary reasoned. Given how advanced Shandra was, it didn’t really surprise him. “And that would explain why this device is so bloody powerful,” he said aloud. “Right then, we need to figure our next move. We should strike against Mr. Silver sooner rather than later.”

“So what do you suggest?” Morgan asked.

“I’ve got a couple ideas,” Arlon answered. “Option A: you lot meet with Mr. Silver. While he’s occupied with you, my team and I will sneak to the ship’s mainframe and use the device to hack into his network there. This will divide Silver’s forces, but it will put a lot more heat on us than you. Or we go with Option B: we go in together and stab that bastard right in the bloody face with the device. Those Mr. Mimes he uses… they’re all networked together. This plan will focus all of Silver’s forces in one spot, but with our combined forces we might be able to hold them off a lot better.”

“I like Plan B,” Morgan told him.

Arlon couldn’t help but crack a slight grin. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he said. “There’s just such a _personal_ touch to it. That settles it then; Plan B it is. Now we just need to plan to meet with him.”

“Well, there’s still that skull…” Shandra offered, trailing off a bit and motioning to Morgan.

_You have got to be shitting me_ , the mercenary thought. It had been ages since they had traveled to Earth. “He _still_ hasn’t told you about the bloody skull?”

“No,” Morgan confirmed.

“Well, at least now you have a reason to meet with him,” Arlon told her. It was always better to look on the bright side. “Schedule a meeting with him and then let us know when and we’ll try to schedule one in the same timeframe.”

“Will do,” Shanra replied.

“Oh, one last thing before I go.” Arlon reached into his pocket and pulled out the dusk stone that he had bought many months ago. “I bought it back when I was still part of your crew. I thought it might come in handy, but I never caught anything that required it to evolve.” _Bloody waste of money, wasn’t it?_ “My team is set now, so I have no need for it. That girl, what was her name, Alex? She mentioned that she has a Lampent. Having it evolve might be useful for when we confront Mr. Silver.” _No sense letting it go to waste._

“I’ll give it to her,” Shandra told him. She walked over to Arlon and took the stone out of his hand. The mercenary felt a slight tingle as Shandra’s hand made contact; even through his gloves, her mark felt strange. _Never gonna get bloody used to that._

“Right then, I’d best be off,” Arlon said. “I’ve got some unfinished business to take care of.” _That’s a bloody understatement._ “Keep in touch.” Arlon turned and headed for the airlock. It was time to get back to the Corsair and start planning the next op; it was a big one, after all.

* * *

Shandra tightly clutched the dusk stone Arlon had given her as she watched the _Corsair_ jump away. It had been great to see the Red Suns’ leader again, but she wished it had been under better circumstances. Now that he was gone, though, there were a lot of things to care of. She had to give the stone to Alex, after all. She was already planning on checking on the girl anyway; she had slinked off to her room as soon as they returned to the _Helix_.

Shandra exited the mess area and headed down the corridor to Alex’s room. The door was unlocked so she stepped inside to find it almost completely dark. Alex sat on the floor, slumped up against the wall, clutching her Meowstic tightly. Her Lampent floated by her head, giving off the only light in the room. She hadn’t even bothered to change out of the pantsuit she had been wearing during the presentation at the conference. It was very clear to Shandra that something was troubling the girl.

“Alex, are you okay?” Shandra asked. Alex remained silent. Shandra took a step closer and held out the dusk stone. “Arlon left this for you,” she said. “You’ll be able to evolve Lumiera now.” Alex glanced up at Shandra, but still didn’t say anything. Shandra walked over and sat herself down next to Alex. “Are you okay?” she asked again, placing her arm around the girl and pulling her into a loose hug.

“I don’t know,” Alex finally replied.

“We did everything we could, you know,” Shandra told her in attempt to comfort her. “That was quick thinking, putting the bomb in the ball. You saved a lot of lives.”

“Loki and Lumiera could have died on that ship… I let them get taken away from me… If we hadn’t got them back when we did…”

“Hey, we got both of them back, didn’t we? That’s what matters. If any of your Pokemon get taken away, I will _always_ help you get them back. I know you’d do the same for me, or anyone on this ship.”

“Thanks,” Alex told her. The girl leaned her head on Shandra’s shoulder.

Shandra held out the dusk stone again. “I think you’re really gonna need this,” she said, giving Alex a warm smile.

As Alex reached out for the stone, her arm passed under the light from Lumiera. At that moment, Shandra realized that this was the first time she had seen the girl’s bare forearms as she always wore gloves to cover them up. In the light, Shandra noticed decorative Sinai writing tattooed on Alex’s right arm. She didn’t fully understand the Sinai language, but she knew enough to make out the words.

“There is no darkness without light,” Shandra said faintly as she read the words off the girl’s arm. She immediately recognized the phrase; Alex had said it to her only a few weeks ago.

“Um, what?” Alex asked. She seemed a bit surprised to hear those words.

“Your tattoo,” Shandra told the girl, looking back down at the words written on her arm. “It’s what you said to me before. It must mean a lot to you for you to have it permanently on your skin like that.”

“Oh, uh… yeah, I guess it does.” Alex glanced down at her arm nervously, then back up at Shandra. “It’s a reminder…” The girl’s sentence trailed off and it seemed like she was remembering something from her past.

“A reminder of what?” Shandra asked.

“I lived in a Sinai monastery for a few years… One of the monks there took me in when I was starving and alone…” Alex’s eyes drifted back to her tattoo again. “It’s something he always used to tell me. I had this done to remind me not to give up…”

“What do you mean?”

“I… It’s because I’ve given up before… I didn’t always believe him...”

“What are you-?” Shandra asked, not sure what Alex meant. Before she could finish, Alex held out both of her arms toward her and turned them over. In the dim light Shandra could see a faded, but obviously self-inflicted, pair of scars, one on each of Alex’s wrists. Her heart sank a bit as the implications dawned on her.

“That’s not the only way I tried either…”

“Shhh, I understand.” Shandra interrupted, pulling Alex into a hug to try to comfort her. “Well, actually I don’t, not _really_ , but I get that you couldn’t always find some reason to live for; I don’t need the details.”

At this, she pulled away from the girl, holding her at arm’s length so they could look each other in the eyes. “Please don’t lose that reason, whatever it is. It would hurt all of us to see you go, myself especially.”

Alex smiled, her cheeks damp from recently shed tears. “Thank you,” she said as the two girls embraced each other once more.

* * *

Morgan sat on her bed glaring at her Pokedex’s screen. She had just watched the video she had received for the umpteenth time. Her mother had sent it shortly after the _Corsair_ escaped the destruction of the _Halcyon_. Morgan had watched it many times since then— watched her mother in tears, begging and pleading for her to come home— but she couldn’t bring herself to reply. _Why now?_ she kept asking herself. It had been months since Morgan had fled her home, but it had taken the destruction of the _Halcyon_ for her mother to even try calling her. _She didn’t really care when I was there, so why does she suddenly care now?_

Once again, Morgan considered calling her mother, but, once again, she did nothing. She knew that if her mother knew where she was, she would never hear the end of it. She didn’t understand. She had _never_ understood. Here on the _Helix_ , Morgan had finally found a place where she felt like she belonged, where she felt that people understood her. At least, she had thought so, but she wasn’t so sure anymore. Even if some of them were still friendly with her, Morgan knew that her crewmates didn’t understand. How could they? Nobody, it seemed, was capable of understanding what she was going through.

Suddenly, there was a loud thud in the corridor. Morgan stood up and cautiously poked her head out the door. Alex sat slumped against the wall, holding the Zigzagoon she had just caught on Ventos several hours ago. The girl was giggling with childish glee as the Pokemon squirmed in her arms. _How can she be so happy after everything that’s happened?_ Morgan wondered. Countless people had died on the _Halcyon_ and Alex was playing around like nothing had happened.

Suddenly, the Zigzagoon dove out of the Sinai girl’s arms and began running down the corridor. Alex quickly jumped to her feet and chased after the Pokemon. “Hey, Rocket, where ya goin’?” she called out. “Come back here you little rascal!”

Morgan sighed, then closed her door. Alex was still such a child. Morgan recognized the girl’s contributions to the crew, but she was still so immature. If she couldn’t understand the weight of what had happened at the conference, there was no way she could possibly understand Morgan’s inner turmoil. Morgan sat back on her bed and resumed staring at her Pokedex, debating whether or not to send her mother a message or not.

* * *

Wind whispered through the trees, darkened by the overarching canopy as the crew moved through the forests of Märchenwald. Morgan had no idea why her crewmates had wanted to come here, of all places. It was an uninhabited planet known for its thick and mysterious forests, and now that she was on its surface, she was beginning to understand why; something about this place made her feel uneasy. 

Suddenly, there was a rustling sound in the distance and Alex ran ahead excitedly. _Why does she always have to do that?_ Morgan and her crewmates picked up the pace a bit to catch up with the girl. They emerged in an open clearing where a Venusaur lay sleeping against a strange looking rock in the center with a face carved into it and a Togetic frantically flapped around in the air.

Alex stood on the edge of the clearing with her Meowstic beside her. “Loki, use Psychic!” the girl instructed the Pokemon. The Meowstic fired a powerful blast of psychic energy at the Venusaur, causing it to awaken. The large Pokemon stood up and roared; it looked very angry. It charged at Loki, but the Meowstic dodged out of the way. Morgan noticed the face on the rock shift to a frown as the Togetic began flapping more frantically and attempted to put the Venusaur back to sleep.

Something was _definitely_ off with this place, Morgan could feel it. She moved in and prepared to attack the Venusaur with her psychic abilities. “No!” Alex shouted as Morgan fired off a blast of energy. The girl quickly pulled out a Pokeball and threw it at the Venusaur, capturing it and saving it from the attack.

Suddenly, the rock began glowing brightly and the Togetic seemed to become even more frantic. The face on the rock shifted once again, this time into a face of rage. Morgan felt her unease grow. “Guys, we should leave,” she warned crewmates. “That rock is alive!” A ghostly face rose up from the rock, revealing itself to be a Spiritomb. Memories flooded Morgan’s mind— memories of the Trevenant, of the Cofagrigus, of the Mirror. Morgan faltered as her own inner demons began to overwhelm her. All she wanted to do was flee, but she felt frozen in place.

Morgan’s crewmates remained oblivious to her fears and prepared to attack the ghostly Pokemon. “Loki, use Light Screen!” Alex commanded her Meowstic. The Pokemon threw up a protective barrier around himself and the others, but it did little to make Morgan feel safe.

Slowly, Morgan’s fear turned to rage. The face was taunting her once more and she was going to wipe its stupid grin away. “Blaise, use Fire Fang!” she commanded her recently caught Charmander to attack. The fiery Pokemon rushed at the Spiritomb and took a nasty bite out of it, leaving the ghostly monster dazed and burned. _Why won’t you go away! I HATE YOU!_ The spectral image, now seemingly everywhere, erupted in a sinister smile more malicious than before, apparently mocking her for all of her shortcomings.

As the battle continued to rage around her, Morgan stared at the Pokemon—her nightmare incarnate— and hesitated, heart racing. Despite being immobile, the face seemed to engulf her, triggering an acute sense of claustrophobia that she had never felt before. Morgan fell to the ground struggling to work up the courage to do something, _anything_ … but found herself unable. The true Spiritomb began to glow, sensing a new feast, and let out a wave of psychic energy. Morgan screamed, closing her eyes and covering her ears with her hands.

And then it was over. The clearing fell still and quiet. Morgan slowly opened her eyes to see Shandra picking up a Pokeball from the ground where the Spiritomb sat only moments before. She then turned her head and saw Alex kneeling beside her. “Morgan, are you alright?” the girl asked.

Morgan hesitated with what should have been an easy answer.

* * *

_Am I Okay?_ Morgan lay on her uncomfortable bed in the only room aboard the _Helix_ she spent much time in nowadays. She thought about that question for a minute, contemplating all of the evidence she had from recent events. She already had MARIA check her, but it had determined that she was healthy. If there was a problem, it was purely psychological. _But that’s kind of expected, isn’t it?_ From all the stress she had been through, Morgan couldn’t deny that there had been repercussions.

She closed her eyes, focusing on all the things that had plagued her of late. _The Halcyon_. Despite knowing that there was nothing she could have done, she couldn’t stop blaming herself for what had happened, for the lives that were lost. She went over those pivotal moments in her head, trying to think of something that could have gone differently, when her Pokedex started beeping on her desk.

_Then there’s my parents…_ Despite all their calls, Morgan still couldn’t bring herself to return them. _It’s not like they would miss me_ , she thought as the beeping eventually silenced itself. She had been over this line of thought countless times, always coming to the same conclusion. _It would be better if they just didn’t know. It’s not like they know what I’m dealing with._ She opened her eyes as she heard Dmitri walk past, mumbling about something that likely held little to no importance.

_It’s not like **anyone** knows what I’m dealing with._ She thought about her crewmates for a while, and was surprised to find that she was crying. The _Helix_ had been the only place she felt comfortable in, but even now it seemed as if the crew was distancing themselves from her. Or maybe she was distancing herself from them? _It’s not like the difference matters._ She thought of all the happy memories she had had with them— all the ones she could remember, anyway— and wondered if anyone would miss her. _Alex, probably._ The rest of the crew she wasn’t so certain about, and even Alex was a hesitant mention. She felt so alone, laying there in what had for the longest time felt like a true home, where she had actual friends.

_Actual friends that I let down_ , she thought, the faint hint of a smile quickly fading. _Actual friends that I tried to kill_ , recalling the time she went off the deep end after their time at the Mirror Planet. She remembered the haunting, smiling faces of all of those ghosts, and this time there wasn’t any uncertainty about what their sinister expressions meant. _They’re laughing at me_ , she thought. _They’re laughing at my fears, my weaknesses._ She couldn’t deny it anymore. _How can anyone accept me if I can’t even accept myself? How can I possibly move forward when I’m constantly reminded of all the times I’ve fucked up?  
_  
She looked up at the bottles of painkillers she had taken from the medbay. _At least it isn’t going to hurt._ She slowly got up from the bed, opened a bottle and poured its contents of little white pills into her hand— far more than the recommended dose. _At least it will all be over soon_. Closing her eyes, she quickly lifted her hand up to her mouth...

… And then everything was quiet aboard the _Helix_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello reader, it seems you have stumbled across this story. "What is Spacemon?" you might be asking yourself. I have submitted this under the catagory of Fan Fiction, but Spacemon is not a fan fic, not exactly. Spacemon tells the tale of a Pokemon tabletop role-playing game campaign, one played using the Pokemon Tabletop United (PTU) system. You can find out all about PTU over on Pokemontabletop.com. The campaign in question is a sci-fi space epic along the lines of Star Wars or Mass Effect, except with Pokemon. Unlike the games, or the anime, this story is of a much darker tone. The campaign has been ongoing since September 2014 and will be concluding in December 2015. I started out just documenting the events of each session, but it became a much larger project, evolving into something not so different than a well-written fan fiction. I've been documenting the campaign along the way on my personal blog, but I thought I would share the story here as well to reach a wider audience.
> 
> There’s your divergence. It was a slow burn, but this is what we’ve been building up to since chapter 4. The funny thing is that in my original concept for Blueshift Morgan survived. After bringing on Shane's player as a co-author, and reading your comments on chapter 4, this just seemed like the right direction to take the story in. With her out of the picture, we’ve opened up a lot of doors to different places we can take this series. We’re in uncharted territory now and anything could happen.
> 
> Going back a bit there are some more changes sprinkled throughout this chapter. It’s mainly pulled from Volume 2, Chapter 25, but I opened with the end of Volume 2, Chapter 24 which I had cut from the previous Blueshift chapter since that one was really long. It flowed nicely into the beginning of the next chapter too. Telling it from Shandra’s perspective instead of a neutral one gave an opportunity to show how the glitch explosion affected her in a bit more detail as well.
> 
> I did take out that scene between Arlon and Rena because it wasn’t really necessary for this story, but I did end up giving him a perspective scene. It just kinda made sense. It also allowed to cut out some parts that didn’t have any differences, such as the inside of the device and scheduling the meeting with Mr. Silver. It was a nice little change of pace too.
> 
> And, obviously, it’s Shandra who brings Alex the dusk stone instead of Morgan, so they get to have a great bonding moment, and as a consequence Morgan doesn’t learn that Alex once went through something similar to what she’s going through. It was also a nice callback to earlier in the series since Shandra can actually read a bit of Sinai and recognized the phrase Alex told her. I’m very happy with how that scene turned out.
> 
> The whole rest of the chapter is all about Morgan. Through a series of scenes we get to show the climax of her descent into darkness. The first was added between the first two planets we visited to fill in for Morgan not having that moment with Shane where she discussed her relationship with her parents. I put it approximately where I thought Morgan's player's second Meanwhile… post fits into the timeline as a replacement for that moment not happening either. The second was an alternate version of the scene with the Spiritomb. In this universe, Morgan didn’t get over her fears so the Spiritomb affected her greatly, and sort of served as the trigger to push her all the way over the edge. Which brings us to her end. The last scene was written entirely by Shane's player and he did a fantastic job of ending this chapter. It’s a very powerful scene the I think says a lot about Morgan’s character, in both universes even.
> 
> I hope you’ve all enjoyed Blueshift so far and I look forward to sharing the rest of the story with you as we move away from the canon storyline faster than ever before.


	9. The Man Behind the Curtain

Nerva’s sun hung low in the sky as Shandra and Alex made their way back to the _Helix_. Hand in hand, the pair walked across a raised walkway connecting two massive skyscrapers in one of the icy marsh world’s large metropolises. Dmitri and H had already returned to the ship to bring back the crew’s recently purchased supplies and to help Diane, the Pokemon tutor the crew had hired on this planet, get settled in, but the two girls had decided to take their time in joining them. As they walked along, Shandra contentedly listened to Alex go on and on about the latest Pokeball technology. With the craziness of the past few days, they hadn’t had much time to spend together and now that the meeting with Mr. Silver was drawing near, Shandra wanted to savor the moment while it lasted.

“Wow, it’s so beautiful,” Alex suddenly said, stopping briefly to gaze out at the skyline. Shandra smiled as they approached the end of the walkway and called the elevator.

After a short ride, the pair arrived back at the docking bay where the _Helix_ was docked. “I’ma go see if Morgan still has that extra dawn stone lying around,” Alex said excitedly as they stepped back aboard the ship. “I can’t wait to evolve Elsa into a Froslass!” the girl continued excitedly as she bounded up the stairs to the upper deck.

Shandra smiled, then turned and headed off to the warp lab. It was barely a moment after she walked through the door that an ear-splitting scream of terror echoed throughout the ship; it was Alex. Within an instant, Shandra had warped to the girl’s side.

“Alex!” Shandra shouted, frantically scanning the room. “Are you oka-”

Her eyes fell to Alex, crying on the floor over Morgan’s still body. _What?_ She looked up to see a few knocked over bottles of medicine, spilling out their contents across the desk and floor. _How could this happen?_ She rushed over to Alex’s side, gently pushing her out of the way and shaking Morgan, begging her to wake up.

She didn’t. 

Shandra felt disconnected from her own whirling emotions. She was screaming, but she didn’t know what. She was terrified, and she didn’t quite know why. Her friend was lying on the ground in front of her, and wouldn’t wake up. Realization dawned on Shandra as she realized that she probably never would. Morgan was dead; she had taken her own life.

For a very brief moment in time, Shandra forgot that Alex was right there beside her, and as soon as she remembered, she pulled her into the tightest hug she could. Her cheeks were wet from crying and, right now, all she needed was someone to mourn with. As Alex’s face buried into her shoulder, she could feel the cold dampness of the poor girl’s tears, in addition to her own. After the longest time, Shandra finally felt comfortable enough to look up at the sound of footsteps that had followed them into the room.

H was frozen in a comical state of disbelief and anger. It seemed as though some major function of his personality was stuck on repeat as he tried to process the scene. Given his new condition, that may have been more accurate than she knew. It looked as though he was going to pop a vein in anger.

Everyone recoiled as he shouted, loud enough to set off an adjacent ship’s alarm.

“ ** _HOW DARE YOU MORGAN?! YOU STUPID, ARROGANT…_** ”

* * *

“...I MEAN WHY WOULD SHE? ALL THIS TIME I HAVE BEEN SAYING THAT WE ARE TOOLS FOR EACH OTHER…” H continued his rant, now approaching near the thirty minute mark. Alex was barely even registering the words anymore. The girl was in the mess area, along with the majority of the crew, who were emptying what little stores of alcohol Armstrong still had. Despite her age and Sinai’s general stigma against drinking, Alex herself cautiously sampled a small sip of some of the disgusting beverages, wondering why the hell anyone would even _want_ to drink this stuff. 

She kept replaying the scenarios in her mind, trying to find a reason. _Why couldn’t I see?_ Looking back, all the signs were there, and Alex couldn’t figure out how she could have missed them. It was clear to her now that ever since that confrontation in the warp lab, Morgan had been slipping down a dark hole. The fact that Alex didn’t see it coming only made it hurt even more. _I should have known. I should have been there._

Suddenly, Shandra snapped and shouted at H to shut up, causing Alex to look up from the hole she had been staring into the floor. “It’s disrespectful to the one person who needed it most. It’s shit like this that fucking killed her!”

H didn’t even notice, and continued on with his rant, oblivious to the feelings of those around him. “...AND TOOLS ARE NOT MEANT TO BE THROWN AWAY! THE MERE FACT THAT THEY ARE TOOLS MEANS THEY HAVE VALUE, THEY ARE USEFUL! WHY COULDN’T SHE SEE THAT?”

The room got unusually quiet. H stood there, taking a number of deep breaths in what was surely an attempt to regulate his emotions. The silence didn’t last, and the cyborg quickly jumped back into his tirade.

“I WAS NEVER WORRIED ABOUT HER BECAUSE SHE NEVER GAVE US THE INCLINATION THAT ANYTHING WAS WRONG! WHY WOULD SHE HIDE SOMETHING LIKE THAT FROM THE VERY PEOPLE WHO COULD HELP HER WITH IT? WHAT POINT COULD IT POSSIBLY HAVE SERVED HER TO BREAK UNDER HER OWN EMOTIONS INSTEAD OF COMING OUT WITH IT, MAKING HER FEARS KNOWN INSTEAD OF GIVING IN TO THEM?”

Finally, something inside Alex snapped; she couldn’t take any more of H’s incessant yelling. “Can’t you just shut up for one second?!” she screamed at the cyborg. “You say not to give into your fears, but it’s not that easy! I’ve been through this before, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with in my entire life! Yes, others can help you, and I know that now, but at the time it felt like the entire Universe hated me, **_even myself_** , and there was nothing I could do about it.” Alex started crying as she choked on her own words. “Morgan… Morgan probably went through something similar, but without anyone to help her.”

H stared speechlessly at Alex. The girl could feel the attention of the room drawn to her, and quickly realized just what she had told the crew. She felt almost an immediate pang of guilt knowing that she had just told everyone within earshot the one thing she tried to keep secret. Guilt turned to rage as she continued to stare H down; he was the one who caused this outburst to begin with.

“We were supposed to be there for her!” Alex shouted when she realized that H didn’t even have a response. The cyborg opened his mouth, but no words came out. “Are you done now?” Alex asked H furiously.

After a few tense moments, the cyborg finally bowed his head, his pointy cybernetic hair drooping ever so slightly with guilt. “Yes.”

“Then _please_ stop talking.” Alex stormed away from the room, leaving them in stunned silence. Further down the hallway, she leaned against a wall and slumped down to the floor, still crying. The girl’s hands were trembling from standing up to H, and she was shaken down to her core by everything that had happened. Curling up into a ball, she whispered to herself, “There is no darkness without light.”

* * *

Alex sat in her room, tinkering with a great ball. A pile of once broken Pokeballs that the crew had used over the past several days sat in a pile on her desk, all of them now repaired. The girl had been working for hours upon hours; it was all she could do to keep her mind occupied. Even now, days later, the pain had yet to subside at all. Working on Pokeballs was something that always helped her to relieve stress, and after everything that had happened, she needed it now more than ever.

Rotating the ball around in her hands, Alex looked it over, trying to figure out exactly which parts were damaged. Seeing no damage to the outside, the girl reached for her screwdriver and popped the casing off. Alex immediately recognized the craftsmanship inside. _Morgan made this herself._ Her hand began trembling as all the feelings she had been trying to suppress came rushing on. The ball slipped from Alex’s fingers as she broke down into tears.

_It’s not fair. Why didn’t I help her? Why couldn’t I save her?_ It was so painfully obvious to Alex now that Morgan had been suffering for a long time. It should have been so clear to her that her friend needed help. Now that she’d had time to think, the girl couldn’t help but blame herself. She had tried to escape her guilt the only way she knew how and now even that wasn’t working anymore.

Alex suddenly felt so alone. It was a familiar feeling to the girl; she was no stranger to loneliness after all. Ever since leaving Vandia, Alex had finally felt like she had found somewhere she belonged, but now it seemed that misfortune had followed her once again and was trying to tear her new friends away. _This must be how Morgan felt, the girl thought. I know it’s how I felt when I was in that position…  
_  
Alex tried to shake the thoughts away. She didn’t want to feel alone. She didn’t want to _be_ alone. The girl stood up and exited her room. She needed to be with the one person on the _Helix_ who had always been there for her.

* * *

_Thud, thud. Thud, thu-thud, thud._

Irregularly timed pounds came from a corner of the warp lab, as Shandra was punching a newly purchased sandbag from some martial arts store on the planet. It was only slightly less painful than punching a wall, but the sandbag had some give to it, and it wobbled around on its dangling chain as she fed it blow after blow.  
 _  
Thu-thud. Thud, thud, thu-thu-thud._

She had to admit, this was certainly one way to cathartically deal with her feelings.

Her hands had started bleeding after a few minutes of venting her anger. Her form was bad, not that she knew, but she had enough sense to get some gauze from the medbay and wrap her bloodied knuckles, containing the bruises and protecting them from further abuse. She paused briefly as she passed by MARIA. It was a painful reminder of what had transpired— exactly who was currently under a bedsheet in her own untouched room.

Shandra opened various drawers and cabinets, to MARIA’s constant warnings, looking for a roll of gauze. While part of her wanted to let it deal with the problem as it was programmed to do, she didn’t want to face the one remaining piece of Morgan’s personality on the ship, if it could even be called that. Morgan had explicitly given it as little personality as possible, and while Shandra had understood her reasons for it, she desperately wished that she had given it more. It was very close to everything the crew still had of her, and it almost felt like a piercing stab in her chest that even after her death, Morgan wanted to leave as little of herself behind as she could.

Wrapping her fists in bandages, Shandra left the medbay and headed back to her punching bag. The throbbing pain in her hands kept her mind off of her anger while it subsided, which currently was all that she could ask for. Right now, her mind refused to process anything else. She hated herself, wishing that there was more she could have done, but wishes didn’t bring people back from the dead. Right now, all she wanted to do was to hit something.

She entered the lab to find Alex sitting in her usual spot, which happened to be near the dangling column. She was looking at it almost quizzically, but her empty expression made it clear that she didn’t really care about what it was. More than likely, she already knew. Either way, there were more pressing Donphan in the room.

“How are you holding up?” Shandra weakly asked as she approached the bag and began beating it again. Alex shrank even further into the ball she was already curled in.

“I’m not,” the girl replied, her voice quivering. “I’ve gone through what she did; I should have known…”

Shandra stopped her new favorite workout and sat down next to the girl as she continued, “I wish I could have been there, I wish there… I wish there was more I could have done.”

Shandra stared past the far wall and sighed. “Me too.” She put her arm around Alex and pulled her close as the two just sat there in silence, giving each other comfort as they mourned the loss of their friend together.

* * *

Alex sat staring down at her feet. The girl could hear voices talking around her in the dimly lit funeral parlor, but she wasn’t registering any of the words. She felt so numb. _How could this happen? Why would she do this? Why couldn’t I see?_ Alex was still asking herself the same questions but the answers still hadn’t changed. _This is my fault. I should have been there.  
_  
“Are you alright?” a voice suddenly asked. Alex looked over to see Rena, Arlon’s lieutenant, sitting beside her, a concerned look on her face. The girl was surprised that she even remembered the Parisian’s name.

Alex didn’t answer and simply stared down at the floor again. _Do I look alright?_

“You were close, weren’t you?” Rena asked.

It was clear that she wasn’t going away, so Alex decided she might as well say something. “We were like family…” The girl trailed off as she thought her words over. “At least, I thought we were. What kind of family am I for not seeing what she was going through?”

“You can’t blame yourself for things like zis,” the genevan woman said, placing a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe she would still be here if I had been there for her…”

“What’s done is done,” Rena said. “But you can be ‘ere for ‘er now.” The Parisian motioned toward the open casket at the front of the room. “You ‘aven’t moved from zis spot since you got ‘ere, and we don’t ‘ave much time left. I think zat you will regret it if you don’t say goodbye.”

_She’s right_ , Alex realized. Most everyone else had gone up to at least pay their respects, but she hadn’t. The girl was afraid to let go, but in her heart, she knew it was time to say _something_. “Thank you,” Alex told Rena. The Parisian woman nodded. Alex stood up and made her way to the front of the room.

As she kneeled in front of the casket, Alex noticed how peaceful Morgan looked. _At least her pain is gone now_ , she thought. It still didn’t make it hurt any less. Alex sat there for a long time before she finally found the strength to speak.

“Hey… hey there, Morgan,” the Sinai girl said softly, fighting to hold back the tears. “I just wanted to say… I don’t know if you knew it, but… you were like a sister to me, y’know? I wish I could’ve told you that…” Alex shut her eyes as droplets began rolling down her cheeks. “I should’ve been there for you… and I’m sorry that I wasn’t. I’m sorry for the things I said… Wherever you are now… I hope you can forgive me.”

Alex sat there a while longer, letting her tears out. She didn’t want the others to see her like this. After enough time had passed, the girl was able to regain some semblance of composure. She slowly stood up and made her way over to Shandra. Alex needed her comfort now more than ever.

She found Shandra on the far side of the room, discussing things with Arlon and Dmitri. Seeing Alex approach, Shandra gave the girl a slight smile then continued speaking. “She wouldn’t have wanted an open casket,” she mused. “At least she’s going to be cremated, and hopefully we can take her home after we face Mr. Silver.”

“I don’t think that’s an option anymore,” Arlon replied. “Sector 9 is completely shut off. With the leadership dead, the Romanovs conquered the Europa System before anyone even knew what happened.”

“I see…”

“Yeah… It’s real bad.” Arlon’s expression turned even more serious than it already was. “We can’t afford to waste anymore time. The longer we wait, the less likely it is the Federation will be able to help us. Not to mention the more likely it is that Mr. Silver will be on to us. Delaying the meeting was bad enough, but… it was important that we did this now.”

“Right. We should get this over with.” Shandra agreed. “We’ll see you at the meeting.”

“Aye. Indeed we will.”

* * *

Silence permeated through the empty corridors of the _UAS Helix_ as the ship moved through warp space toward its destination. In light of recent events, the members of the crew were somberly making their final preparations for the confrontation with Mr. Silver that was drawing ever nearer.

Alex sat in her room, turning the dusk stone that Arlon had left for her over in her hands repeatedly. The girl gazed upon the purplish stone as she ran her fingers over its smooth surface. It seemed to give off a faint glow in the pale light cast off by Lumiera, who was floating nearby. Alex gripped the stone tighter as she looked up at her Lampent; it was time.

“This is for you,” she said to her ghostly friend, holding the stone out. “That Arlon guy left it for us so that you can evolve.” Lumiera let out a cute sound as she floated over to Alex. Despite the circumstances, the girl couldn’t help but smile a little bit as she watched her Pokemon began to glow brightly.

The light died down, as did the glow emanating from the stone. Alex looked up from the now-dark stone in her hand at her newly evolved Pokemon. “Wow, you’re so pretty,” the girl said softly, pulling the Chandelure into a hug. “And now you’re gonna be much stronger too. We’ll take on that Mr. Silver guy together. We’ll do it for Morgan.”

Suddenly, the view outside the viewport changed as the _Helix_ dropped out of warp space. “We’ve arrived,” Minerva’s voice sounded over the comms shortly thereafter. Alex recalled Lumiera into her ball, then made her way to the bridge.

As the rest of her crewmates slowly filtered onto the bridge, Alex watched out the front viewport as a large and very advanced looking ship drew nearer. The ship hailed the _Helix_ and a man appeared on the viewscreen. “Mr. Silver is expecting you,” he said, then transmitted docking instructions.

“This isn’t creepy at all,” Minerva said as she flew the ship into the hangar. She pulled the _Helix_ in next to the already-docked _Corsair_ and set it down. 

Alex followed H, Dmitri, and Shandra off the bridge, and, together, the four crewmates stepped off the _Helix_ where they are greeted by Arlon, Rena, and Kiril. “I remember the last time we met like this,” Shandra said with a slight, half-hearted chuckle.

“A lot’s changed since then,” Arlon said solemnly. Alex noticed the mercenary looking across at the space between where she was standing and Dmitri. It was where Morgan would have been standing if she had been with them.

After a moment of silence, Arlon turned his gaze toward the door on the far side of the hangar. “Let’s do what we came here to do.”

Alex clenched her fists tightly. It was time to take on the mysterious Mr. Silver that she had heard so much about.

* * *

Shandra felt a wary anticipation building up as she traversed the immaculate corridors alongside her friends. It was not long before she found herself standing outside Mr. Silver’s office. The doors slid open and Shandra stepped inside, followed by the three Red Suns and what remained of the _Helix_ ’s main crew. A familiar silhouette stood, back turned, facing the viewport on the far wall.

Arlon and his two lieutenants hung back as the _Helix_ crew stepped further into the room. Shandra noticed Arlon lean his back against the wall as she passed him by and moved her way to the front. “It’s been a long time, Mr. Silver,” she said.

“Indeed,” the mysterious man replied as his puppet Mr. Mime turned to face his guests. Shandra watched a massive amount of data scroll across the screen-face, and she processed it almost as fast as it was moving: the current activities of the Red Suns, the current activities of the _Helix_ crew, a dossier on Alex. That’s where it stopped. Shandra glanced over at the girl to see her staring in horror at the cybernetically altered Mr. Mime.

“Ah, Alexandria Hawthorne,” Mr. Silver said, turning his attention to the girl. “Age: seventeen, planet of origin: Vandia, orphaned daughter of Dr. Robert Hawthorne, PhD., expert on ancient archaeology, current location: unknown. I do believe this is the first time we’ve met.”

As he spoke, data on Alex’s life flashes across the screen: her Spacenet presence, photos of her, articles on her father’s disappearance. Shandra looked back at Alex. By her expression, it was clear that Mr. Silver was getting under her skin. “H- how can you… possibly know all that?” the girl managed to stutter.

“I know many things.”

“Leave her out of this,” Shandra told Mr. Silver fiercely as she reassuringly grabbed Alex’s hand.

“Hmm. Interesting.” For a brief moment, Shandra saw an image of herself and Alex together appear on the screen.

“Enough of this; you already know why we're here,” Shandra said forcefully. If Mr. Silver had eyes she would be staring them down in cold anger. “Let's skip the formalities and get straight to business. The skull.”

“Of course,” Mr. Silver replied. “It is most unfortunate that your colleague is no longer with us. She did seem quite interested in it.”

Shandra could feel her hands curl into fists, but tried to stay in control of her emotions.“It’s been long enough. You should know what it is by now, and even if she's…” Shandra hesitated with the words. “... _gone_ , we deserve to know as well.”

“Naturally. I suppose there is no harm in telling you at this point. It is the first Pokemon.”

“And what, exactly, does that mean?”

“You’ve been in contact with Gilgamesh. Surely he’s told you by now.”

“So, tell us something we don’t know,” Shandra responded coldly. _Enough of this bullshit.  
_  
“And how much _do_ you know?” Mr. Silver asked her in turn.

“Something tells me that you know more about us than _we_ do.”

“Oh, of that, I have no doubt.” Images of Shandra and the Gardener Sphere flashed across the screen. “But how much do _you_ know?”

“I would say ‘more than you think,’ but we all know that’s a lie.”

“So, have you figured it out yet?” The screen-face asked. The question seemed rhetorical, almost patronizing. “I know you have the sphere.”

“We have figured it out,” H suddenly cut in, walking forward arrogantly and interrupting what Shandra was likely about to say next. “I am the chosen one. We already discussed that last meeting. That’s old news. You already knew that, so why even ask that question? We’re wasting time.”

“Ah, yes, Experiment #1749XQR5Z-H,” Mr. Silver said, turning to face the approaching cyborg. “How has Armstrong been treating you lately?”

“Quite well,” H responded.

“Certainly better than the _others_.” The knowing tone of voice seemed to suggest that Mr. Silver was smiling, if he was even capable of smiling.

“Of course he would,” H responded, coming to a dramatic stop in the center of the room, just in front of the desk. “I am the one that stands. I am the last. I am the chosen.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

“I would not be standing here if it were not true.”

Mr. Silver just bowed his head, shaking it dismissively. “It is because you are a leftover.”

“Yes, I am the leftovers because I have been chosen by fate. If it is not the design of some madman such as yourself, choosing and manipulating from afar, then it is that of something even further up— _higher than yourself_. It is inexplicable, but I am here. I am the last of my brethren, and I will succeed where they have failed.”

“You are a leftover because there was no further use for you.”

If Mr. Silver _was_ getting under H’s skin, the cyborg certainly was doing a good job of hiding it. “If you don’t have a use for me, that does not mean the Universe does not have a use for me.”

“The Universe does not, in fact, have a use for you,” Mr. Silver said, moving purposefully around the desk to counter H’s position in front of him. “You are a footnote, a stepping stone. Your time has already passed.”

“Well, then I shall follow the path of the fool, the path to claim what is not even rightfully mine, regardless, for, in my eyes, I will be able to claim what I see as rightfully mine. Only fools can change history.”

Mr. Silver tilted the screen to the side, feigning incredulity. “You don’t know the purpose of the experiments, _do you?_ ”

“I do not, nor do I care, for, as you said, they are but a footnote. Now, let us get back to the reason we are here today: so we can give you information, and you can give us the information you did not give all those months ago: the warp matter, the Earth, the skulls and skeletons and fossils…”

“I would have thought Earth would have been obvious by now.”

“It was for the skull,” Shandra told the mime, slightly relieved to be getting back on topic. “ _Obviously_.”

“Indeed. I must thank you again for providing it. It has been most helpful.”

“What, _exactly_ , have you done with it?” Shandra asked, as the _Helix_ ’s remaining crew moved in behind H. There was about a meter and a half between them and the puppeteer of the Galaxy, and nobody was feeling completely calm.

“I don’t believe that was our arrangement. Your _friend_ Morgan asked what it was, and that is precisely what I have told you now.” Mr. Silver paused for a moment. “It’s a shame really, you not remembering. So, how about this?” He trailed off as the screen-face slid open partially, revealing a port. “You want to know who I am?” He seemed to be beckoning Shandra inside. Shandra quietly and respectfully put her hands behind her back, secretly gesturing to Arlon, out of Mr. Silver’s sight.

“Don’t do it,” Alex said, gripping Shandra’s arm tightly.

“There is only one way to find out,” Mr. Silver continued. “Naturally, I wouldn’t expect you to feel comfortable with this… Know that I only offer you this opportunity because, at this point, there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

It was at that moment that Arlon stepped forward. “I suppose the reason for this meeting was quite obvious then,” the Red Suns’ leader said. As he approached Shandra’s side he discreetly slipped the cyber weapon into her hand. “You know we don’t trust you. You probably know that I have _never_ trusted you, mate. So stop playing these games and just _fucking_ tell us what we want to know.”

“It would be easier to show you.”

Shadra looked at Alex and gave the girl a reassuring nod. Alex’s worried expression relaxed a bit and she allowed Shandra to pull her arm away. Shandra approached the Mr. Mime, still concealing the cyber-weapon. “If you say so…” Mr. Silver barely had time to react as Shandra stabbed the liquid blade into the port, and the mime’s body began spasming uncontrollably as data rushed across the screen. “...but I like this way so much better,” Shandra said with a wicked smile as Mr. Silver’s body fell to the floor.

The lights flickered as the wall-sized window behind the desk revealed a massive secondary screen. A torrential flow of data filled the screen, impossible to follow quickly enough, as scenes of planets, dossiers, and news reports flooded the screen and were as quickly deleted, only to show up on the output of the cyber-weapon. Glimpses of the Angels— or at least beings that bore an uncanny resemblance to Alex’s descriptions— flew by faster than they could be recognized. Eventually, the windows of information faded as they were left with a view of what appeared to be a holographic room, flush with the current one, but virtual. The dark walls coursed with pulses of cerulean energy along angular and circular pathways, and in the center stood a single, humanoid figure, similarly translucent and silvery blue. It was clapping.

“Impressive,” the figure said, its voice now resonating all around them through the room’s speaker system. “I underestimated you, Gardener. It seems your time with the Humans truly has changed you.” Images and memories flashed through Shandra’s mind as she gazed upon Mr. Silver’s true form. Something about him felt so familiar. It reminded her of the form she had been in before the Sinai researchers made her who she now was. _How can I possibly know that?_ Unlike the state Shandra had been in when the researchers found her, Mr. Silver seemed whole— undamaged and free of human reconstruction.

“What the bloody fuck is this?” Arlon asked.

“This...” Mr. Silver said, gesturing to the digital cage around him, “...is my true form. And judging by your colleague’s reaction, it used to be quite similar to hers as well.”

Shandra flinched, then approached the screen and slammed her fist against the reinforced glass. “What the fuck do you know about me?”

Mr. Silver spoke condescendingly, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Not that it would break under that flimsy amount of force, but on the other side of that glass is still hard vacuum. It would mean quite a painful death for you if this ship were to lose atmosphere.”

Shandra stepped away, grumbling as Mr. Silver continued, “Nevertheless, I am still quite amused that you seem not to remember your purpose. _Our_ purpose.”

“Which is?” Shandra asked, annoyed. She looked over and saw Alex hyperventilating, backing herself into the corner where the other Red Suns stood.

“Have you ever asked yourself… _why_ Humans and Pokemon?”

“A very difficult question to ask when the only one who can answer it is yourself,” Shandra pointed out, rather annoyed with Mr. Silver’s skirting questions. _Just get to the damn point already.  
_  
The room shifted as Mr. Silver willed information into existence, and something resembling a circular timeline appeared floating in its center. “I will say you’re making this harder than it needs to be with that weapon I designed,” Mr. Silver stated, looking at the group with disdain. “I would be able to show you so much more without constantly needing to fight its pull.”

“So, what exactly are we looking at here, mate?” Arlon asked.

“First, I will ask you this. What hints have you gathered throughout your journeys? Artifacts, ruins, and the like?” Images of Armstrong, Bill, and other unfamiliar faces appeared along the timeline as Mr. Silver populated it with information. “Your scientists... have been researching ancient lifeforms.” The images were replaced by those of the Genesect, the golem-creature on Prague, the Storm Leviathan of Messina, Darkrai, and Giratina. “Tell me, what conclusions have you reached?”

“The only conclusions that we’ve come to...” Dmitri said, pulling the attention of everyone in the room. “...Is that ancient life forms such as the Genesect… are physically incapable of reproduction.”

“And as a direct result of which, they cannot give life to themselves,” H continued. “Meaning that there must be someone, or something, higher than them to give them life. Since we can assume this doesn’t happen often, we can therefore also assume that their lifespan is significantly longer to compensate, potentially indefinitely so.”

“You are… partially correct in both assumptions.” Mr. Silver said, before motioning to Shandra and himself. “You see, _we_ are the methods of their replication; _we_ are the stewards of the coming generation.”

“Just get to the point already,” Shandra said.

“That _is_ the point.”

“So… how exactly did we go about doing that? Perpetuating their generational cycle?”

“The plan is straightforward, by our standards at least. _You_ plant the seeds, and _I_ reap the harvest.”

Shandra clenched her fists in anger at Mr. Silver’s words. Her mark glowed a violent shade of purple.

“Are you telling me,” Arlon fumed as he approached the screen. “We’re just supposed to sit around and wait while you destroy the _entire bloody Galaxy?_ ”

“No.” Mr. Silver said, smiling. “I’m saying I already have. By the way, have fun with the silent alarm.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Arlon said, acknowledging that the cyber weapon had finished downloading the network’s terabytes of data before he ripped it out of the lifeless mime’s screen.  “It’s time to go,” he said.

The screen disappeared, and the doors opened as a squad of guards rushed into the room.

* * *

“All this information seems to suggest that there’s something important at these coordinates,” Arlon said. The Red Suns’ leader pointed to a location in Alliance space on the _Helix_ ’s navchart. “They’re sending gear, tech, even that bloody skull. We already know that damn thing is important, so if that bastard sent it there, then I’m willing to bet that there’s something big there.”

The _Helix_ and the _Corsair_ sat docked with each other in orbit around an uninhabited planet in a small Outer Rim system between Mr. Silver’s ship and the Sector 29 warp gate. It had been a few days, but some of them were still nursing injuries received during the recent escape from Mr. Silver. However, in the meantime, the crews of both ships had tirelessly poured over the data they pulled from Mr. Silver’s network. Most of the data was mostly low-level operation reports and shipping manifests, but it finally seemed that they had come across something big.

_Finally, some good news_ , Shandra thought as she looked at the screen. “Sounds like that’s where we need to go, then,” she said. “Let’s get moving.”

“Let me get this straight,” Minerva butted in. “We’re going to the creepy, mysterious coordinates _without_ backup?”

“We’ll be going with you, luv,” Arlon told the pilot.

“Oh, great. We have an extra ship. That makes it so much better,” Minerva replied, her sass turned up to maximum. “Okay, we can go now.” 

“Bloody hell, you’re almost as bad as my own pilot.” 

“More backup couldn’t hurt though,” Dmitri pitched in.

“Why would we need backup?” H asked.

“Oh, I don’t know… maybe so that we don’t die horribly,” Minerva retorted.

“We won’t die horribly, H said confidently. “Well, _you_ might, but I won’t!”

“Well, I like living… and I’d rather _keep living_.”

“I think we all would,” Shandra said. “What about Graves? She’s helped us before.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Arlon agreed. “We have no idea what we might be walking into.”

Shandra nodded, then walked over to the comm systems. She attempted to contact the _FNS Halberd_ , but the call didn’t go through. “I can’t get a hold of the _Halberd_ ,” Shandra informed the others.

“I was afraid this would happen,” Arlon responded. “Graves is my only contact in the Federation navy worth a damn, and I’m guessing she has her hands full fighting the Romanovs. Looks like we’re on our own for this one.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Minerva responded. “Have fun getting yourselves killed.”

“Relax, luv,” Arlon told the pilot. “We can handle ourselves.” The mercenary then turned to the rest of the _Helix_ crew. “Well then, let’s get moving. I’ll see you on the other side.” With that, Arlon departed from the bridge and returned to the _Corsair_.

* * *

The _Helix_ dropped out of warp space on the fringes of Sector 7 in Alliance space. The ship’s crew, assembled on the bridge, were greeted with a view of a dark, starless stretch of space, devoid of anything except for a small station no bigger than the _Helix_ itself. “Well, it’s certainly smaller than I expected,” Shandra commented.

“Looks can be deceiving,” H responded. “This is Mr. Silver we are dealing with.”

“Fair point.”

Before they could discuss further, the _Corsair_ dropped out of warp space and immediately hailed the _Helix_. Shandra pressed a button on the console and Arlon appeared on the viewscreen. “What are we dealing with here?” the mercenary asked.

“Not a whole lot, by the looks of it,” Shandra told him, glancing out the viewport at the station.

“I can see that,” Arlon replied with a slight chuckle. “Right then. Let’s dock with this bugger and see what Mr. Silver’s got hidden up his sleeve.”

The _Corsair_ moved in to dock with the station, and Minerva followed suit, bringing the _Helix_ in to dock with the heavy frigate’s free airlock. Shandra hopped out of her seat and made her way to the airlock, her crewmates close behind.

“Welcome back to the _Corsair_ ,” Arlon greeted the _Helix_ crew at the airlock. The mercenary turned back toward his ship and motioned for them to follow. “There’s no time to waste, so let’s make this quick,” he continued as they walked down the corridor.

“It looks like you’re ready for a war,” Shandra commented as several Red Suns hastened past, armed with rifles and heavy rocket launchers.

“Mr. Silver asked for one when he set all this in motion,” Arlon replied as he lead the crew into a room. “And without the Federation to back us up, I’m arming everyone up. That means you too.”

The lights flickered on, revealing rows of weapon racks lining the walls. Arlon quickly walked over to one and grabbed a pair of laser rifles off the wall. “These are for you,” he said as he turned back to face the _Helix_ crew.

H turned his nose up as the Red Suns’ leader held out a rifle toward him. “This is all I need,” the cyborg declared, hefting his Pokeball cannon up onto his shoulder.

“Suit yourself, mate,” Arlon responded. The mercenary turned his attention over to Shandra.

“I’m good,” the blue-haired girl told him, holding up her electric dagger in her marked hand, which was glowing fiercely. “Though one of those pistols wouldn’t be too bad.”

“Alright then,” Arlon said, nodding toward the pistols. “The ones on top are laser pistols, the bottom ones are ballistic. Take your pick.” The mercenary then turned to Dmitri. “Here you go, mate,” he said as he passed the rifle into the Romanov’s hands. “And… hmm…” The Red Suns’ leader trailed off as his eyes fell on Alex. “Probably a bit big for you,” he said, glancing back at the rifle.

Arlon set the weapon back on the rack and picked up a pistol instead. “You ever fired one of these before, luv?” the mercenary asked as he handed the gun to Alex. The girl shook her head.

“It’s simple really,” Arlon said as he walked around behind Alex. “Just turn the safety off,” he said, pointing to a switch on the side. The mercenary then raised the teenage girl’s arms into firing position. “Then aim and pull the trigger.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Alex asked, hesitantly eying the weapon in her hands.

“I wouldn’t be giving you this if I didn’t think so,” Arlon assured her as he released his grip. The Red Suns’ leader turned to face the rest of the crew. “Alright, let’s get moving.”

* * *

“Charges in place.” Kiril stepped back from the sealed hatch, giving Arlon a good line of sight on the entry point. “Ready on your mark.” The Romanov held up the detonator as he flashed the Red Suns’ leader a grin.

“Three.” Arlon tightened his grip on his pistols. 

“Two.” The mercenary took a deep breath.

“One.” _Let’s do this._

“ _Breach!_ ”

Kiril pressed the button and the breaching charges detonated, blasting a man-sized hole in the sealed hatch while leaving the rest of the airlock unharmed. Arlon stepped through the hole into the station, then hit the button to open the interior airlock. Luckily, the doors slid open, allowing the team to board. The mercenary swiftly moved down the corridor with his fellow Red Suns and the _Helix_ crew close at his heels.

Reaching the end of the corridor, Arlon activated the door console and the door slid open. The Red Suns’ leader stepped through into a small room and quickly scanned it with his pistols. “Clear!” he shouted upon finding it empty.

“Maybe nobody’s ‘ome,” Rena commented as she looked around the room. “It is odd zat nobody is ‘ere.”

“Or they knew we were coming,” Dmitri offered.

“Well, it certainly seems like we’re walking into a trap,” Shandra said, agreeing with her crewmate

“You know what they say, luv,” Arlon said as he turned to face the blue-haired girl. “Sometimes the best option is to spring the trap.”

“What’s our plan then?” Shandra asked.

The Red Suns’ leader looked around the room and got a feel for the layout of the station. “Alright, we’ve got three rooms. Rena, Kiril, take some men and sweep left. Luke, Petra, you’ve got the right.” Arlon then turned his gaze to the _Helix_ crew. “You lot are with me; We’re pushing right up the middle. Let’s move!”

Arlon activated the door console and moved through. After another short corridor, the group stepped into a larger room to find a tram sitting on a track that ended at a ring on the wall. “That’s weird,” Arlon muttered. “All teams, report,” he ordered over the comms.

“All clear ‘ere,” Rena responded.

“Nothing on our end either,” Luke echoed.

“Alright, regroup at my position,” Arlon ordered. He then turned to the _Helix_ crew. “Where the hell are we supposed to go from here?”

“There _is_ a tram,” H pointed out.

“But it doesn’t go anywhere,” Alex retorted.

“It must go _somewhere_ ,” Shandra said. “Why else would it be here?”

“I agree,” Rena said said she stepped through the door, the rest of the team behind her. “Zis tram must be ‘ere for a reason.”

“It makes no sense, but this is Mr. Silver’s station, after all,” Arlon said. “Alright, that settles it. There’s not room for all of us on that tram, so the _Helix_ crew and I will go while the rest of you hold the fort down.”

“I don’t like ze idea of you going in zere alone,” Rena said with a worried tone.

“There’s no sense risking all our lives,” Arlon told her. “If we’re not back in an hour, come in after us.”

“You can count on us, boss,” Luke responded.

Arlon turned to face the _Helix_ crew. “You lot ready?” he asked.

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Shandra replied.

“Shall we?”

The team boarded the tram, and Arlon started it up. The doors slid shut as the tram whirred to life. The vehicle began to move along the track toward the ring. As the tram approached, the ring began to light up and a glowing purple mass appeared in the center. “Is that what I think it is?” Arlon asked.

“It’s a warp gate,” Dmitri said, confirming the mercenary’s suspicion.

“It’s so… _tiny_ ,” Alex commented.

“Well, Mr. Silver is just full of surprises, isn’t he?” Arlon said as the miniature gate drew near. The glow intensified as the tram came in contact with the purple energy at the center of the ring. Arlon gripped his pistols tightly as the vehicle passed through the gate into the unknown. _Let’s see what you’re hiding, you bloody bastard._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, here it is! Would you believe me if I told you I started this the day after the previous chapter? I made a huge chunk of progress early on and had a few parts leftover that I needed Shane's player to help with. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a whole lot of time, and even then, when he did have some, other things had the priority. That ended up extending the time it took to finish this by a few weeks. He does apologize for the delay, and I hope the quality of the chapter more than makes up for it.
> 
> There are a lot of things going on in this chapter, and so many differences since we basically just took Volume 2, Chapter 26, completely tore it apart, then put it back together as something completely new. Last chapter provided us with the catalyst we needed to drastically change the course of this story. Before Morgan’s death all we could really do was make some minor changes to plot details, but now we can do so much more. This chapter really shows off what we intend to do going forward. Throughout the campaign and the writing process for the original chapters, there were a lot of moments where some of us would have liked to see a certain event play out a bit differently either because of a bad roll or the GM throwing something at us that not everyone was happy with, but now we have the chance to explore those what if scenarios by figuring out what moments we want to play out differently and then finding a way to justify them as being a result of Morgan’s death, or other differences caused by her death. So let’s dive in here.
> 
> First up we have a scene of Morgan being discovered. I felt like opening up on Nerva was important to remind the readers where the crew was since a good chunk of this chapter now takes place while the Helix is still there as opposed to it only being briefly mentioned. The next few scenes gave us a great opportunity to show how different characters dealt with Morgan’s suicide. H in particular was the one we thought would be the most interesting. He literally can’t comprehend it. It was also some nice character development for Alex, actually sharing some of her own demons with the crew instead of keeping them secret. We also get to see Shandra having a bit of a different personality from Shane, partially due to her being built off a different neural template, and partially due to her different circumstances. She’s definitely a lot more aggressive, even in venting her frustration. The funeral scene gave me some serious feels too. I’m not gonna lie, I teared up a little bit when I wrote Alex’s goodbyes.
> 
> All of that is what causes the rest of the differences. The meeting with Mr. Silver got pushed back a week so that they could grieve and give Morgan her funeral, which is of course makes it so that the Federation doesn’t send a fleet to help so the Red Suns and the Helix crew have to go it alone. Also, not having Morgan means the meeting itself is a bit different. In the actual session, both Shane's player and myself would’ve liked to have just stabbed Mr. Silver in the face, but the GM forced us to go the other route, even after his Batman gambit totally failed. He had basically said that he didn’t see any other way for the scene to make sense or to get us the right information. I had come to terms with that, but Shane's player really wanted to have this scene happen the way he wanted it to so we agreed to have Shandra stab the bastard and figure out a way to still convey all the necessary information. We think we succeeded, and proved the GM wrong in the process.
> 
> So, that brings us the end. We decided to hell with it, let’s have it be a tactical station sweep with a small team, because why not? It was easy to justify why the Federation fleet wasn’t there. That brings up more differences. Due to less manpower, the Helix crew had to get armed up, even Alex. The tactical breach was fun to write. I took inspiration from the opening of Seeing Red and just went from there. I love how it turned out. And with Morgan gone, that left an open slot on the tram, so Arlon has temporarily rejoined the party! That’s gonna cause a lot more changes for sure!


	10. Advent

Tension hung heavy in the air as the tram emerged from the warp gate on the other side. Shandra felt unease building up inside her as it ground to halt. The doors slid open and the team stepped out onto the platform. Looking around the room, Shandra spotted a few crates scattered across the floor, but there was nothing else of much note to be seen.

“No one here either,” Arlon observed as he stepped down from the platform. “I have a bad feeling about this. Let’s not waste any more time standing around. The sooner we can get out of here the better.” The Red Suns’ leader walked up to a door on the right side of the room and attempted to open it. “Damn, it’s locked. Let’s try the other one.”

“Hold on,” Dmitri suddenly spoke up. “Do you guys feel that?”

“Feel what?” Shandra asked.

“There’s something _off_ about this place,” the Romanov explained.

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “This place gives me the creeps.” Shandra felt the girl’s hands grab onto her arm for comfort.

“No,” Dmitri told the girl. “I sense something… A presence… It’s the same feeling I got when we encountered Darkrai.”

“Darkrai?” Arlon asked.

“It’s a long story,” Shandra told the mercenary. “One we definitely don’t have time to tell.”

“Speaking of which, what are we just standing around for?” Arlon asked.

“Yes,” H agreed. “Let us proceed!”

“Just hold on a minute,” Dmitri said as the cyborg began walking to the door on the left. “There’s a very powerful aura here. I can feel it pressing against mine. If we’re not careful we’ll end up like those people we found outside the Mirrored Temple.”

Shandra felt Alex’s grip tighten at the mention of that name. “Well, what do you suggest we do then?” she asked.

“Let me see if I can extend my aura to you guys,” Dmitri said. “Whatever connection I have with Darkrai is keeping me safe.” The Romanov closed his eyes in concentration and extended his hands out.

Slowly, Shandra felt an energy pass through her. She felt the uneasiness that she hadn’t even noticed festering in the back of her mind subside. Dmitri had been right. There was a presence that Shandra hadn’t been able to sense until the Romanov had dissipated it.

“Alright, now that you’re done messing around, can we proceed now?” H asked impatiently.

“You got it, mate,” Arlon told the cyborg. The mercenary approached the door and hit the console.

The lights flickered a bit as the team moved through the door into a narrow corridor. Pressing onward to the end, they arrived at another closed door. H walked up to the door and tried to push the door open. Shandra sighed and shook her head as she watched the cyborg struggle with the door. Determining it could not be opened by pushing, H then attempted to pull it open.

“You have to press the button on the console, you idiot,” Alex finally pointed out. The girl walked over to the console next to the door and pressed the button. The door began to whir as it struggled to open. It sparked a couple times and, eventually, it slid open, although not very smoothly at all.

Arlon took point as the team stepped into the dimly lit room. The Red Suns’ leader quickly scanned the room with his pistols while the others filed in behind him. Looking around for herself, Shandra determined that they were in the station’s living quarters. Several beds lined the walls on one side and in one corner there was a small kitchenette and a table. A viewport provided a view of a dense red nebula. The bodies of two scientists lay sprawled out on the floor amongst the broken bits of pipes and wires were scattered across it.

There was also a pair of damaged Genesect lying with the debris. One was heavily damaged and lay in a mangled and twisted, and heavily damaged, the other intact, eyes flickering on and off. “Ah, more specimens!” H exclaimed upon seeing them. “Wonderful!”

Dmitri pulled out a Great Ball and threw it at the badly damaged Genesect. Unfortunately, the capture failed, and the Pokemon emerged. It’s eyes started to flicker a bit, showing signs that it was still somewhat functional, and sparks flew out from its mangled form, but it remained otherwise motionless.

“Hmm, that didn’t work,” H grumbled. “I suggest we just sever their heads so we’re safe and then take these back with us.” The cyborg walked up to the Genesect and brought it offline as he had described. He then moved onto the next and did the same. “Excellent,” he said. “I will take these back to the tram.” He grabbed hold of the two Genesect husks and began to drag them out of the room, back through the door through which the team had entered.

While waiting for H to return, Shandra watched the rest of the team move about the room. Dmitri searched through the personal footlockers near each bed and Alex approached a nearby computer terminal while Arlon looked around the room, surveying the damage. “What the bloody hell happened here?” the mercenary asked as he pushed a broken pipe off one of the scientists’ bodies with his foot.

“Nothing good,” Shandra told him. “This is Mr. Silver we’re talking about.”

“But this seems bad, even for him, luv,” Arlon responded.

“Hey, guys, I found a map,” Alex announced before they could continue discussing. Shandra felt her Pokex buzz, so she pulled it out to see that Alex had sent her the map she had just downloaded.

“Nice work,” Shandra told the girl as she looked over the map. It displayed an unsurprisingly symmetrical layout with two corridors leading out from the tram platform into two larger rooms, one of which the team was currently standing in. Two more corridors lead out from those rooms and met in the middle, at the opposite end of the station from the tram. The entrance to a room at the center of the facility stood where the corridors joined.

“I bet whatever Mr. Silver is hiding here is in that central room,” Arlon said as he looked over the map for himself.

“I bet you’re right,” Shandra agreed.

A few moments later, H returned and the team moved on into the next corridor. They passed by several even more badly damaged Genesect and arrived at a large security door leading to the central room. Alex approached the door and attempted to hack it open, but without success. “This door is locked down pretty tight,” the girl explained.

“Can you open it?” Arlon asked her.

“Not from here.” Alex pointed to the room opposite the living quarters on the map displayed on her Pokedex. “There’s a security override in this room, but…”

“But what?”

“There’s no air in there. There’s a large hull breach.”

“I’ll do it,” Shandra volunteered. “I don’t need air.”

“I will go as well,” H told her. “My augmentations allow me to resist the vacuum of space.”

“But what about air?” Shandra asked.

“That’s what this is for.” The cyborg pulled out a vial of the oxygenation solution the crew used on Messina and injected himself with it.

“Alright then,” Shandra said. She had to admit that H’s foresight was rather impressive. As she approached the  door to the breached room, Shandra turned back to the others. “You may want to go back to the other room,” she warned them.

Once the others had cleared out, Shandra hit the button on the door console. A warning light on the door flashed and it refused to open. Shandra quickly hacked into the console and overrode the warning. The air in the corridor rushed past Shandra and H out into the vacuum as the door slid open.

As she stepped into the room, the first thing to grab Shandra’s attention was a large breach in the station’s hull. Gazing around the room, she also spotted another Genesect lying on the floor, severed in half by the emergency blast doors that presumably closed when the hull was breached. Completing her quick scan of the room, Shandra noticed a set of consoles along the wall. _That must be the override_ , she thought. Shandra took a step toward the consoles and motioned H to follow.

Shandra checked one of the consoles while her cybernetic crewmate checked another. Looking through the files, she found a series of badly degraded video logs from the scientists who worked at the facility. _These might be useful_ , Shandra thought after taking  a brief glance at one. She downloaded what few logs she was able to salvage from the damaged console then moved onto the next.

“Found it,” Shandra told H upon accessing the console. The override for the security door was right there on the screen. Before she pressed the button, Shandra quickly checked the security cameras just to be safe. Through the horribly flickering video feed, she saw what looked to be some sort of lab. Some objects lined the walls, but she couldn’t really make out what they were. She also noticed what looked like another dead scientist lying on the ground. However, there didn’t appear to be any immediate danger, so she pressed the security override.

With their task complete, Shandra and H returned to the corridor and sealed the door behind them. Shandra then headed back down the corridor to the door to the living quarters and knocked. “You can come out now,” she said to the rest of the team. The door slid open and Arlon, Alex, and Dmitri stepped back into the corridor. “The door’s unlocked,” Shandra told them as she started walking back toward the security door. “I also found some video logs that we should probably look at before we go in.”

“Good idea, luv,” Arlon agreed. “It’s best to know what we’re dealing with here.”

Shandra pulled out her Pokedex and brought the logs up. “The console was pretty badly damaged,” she explained. “I only managed to find three that were still intact.” The first was dated a few years back while the other two were much more recent. The second was from the previous month and the third was from only a couple weeks ago. Shandra selected the first and it began to play.

Large metal and glass pods with people inside of them lined the walls of the laboratory. The camera panned to the door to reveal a raging Gyarados inside a cage being wheeled in. Once the cage stopped moving, the scientists subdued the Gyarados, then brought it out of the cage. While it still lived, they slice it open— a living dissection. They reduced its innards to goo and pumped it through tubes, injecting it into one of the pods.

From the corner of her eye, Shandra saw Alex looks away in disgust. She was deeply disturbed by the video, so she could only imagine how Alex must have been feeling.

Flashes and metallic sounds drowned out everything else as the scientists conducted their experiment. “Subject #14: failed,” the apparent head scientist announced. The camera turned to face him. “Subject is now deceased. Process did not stabilize. Result: lethal tumors.”

The footage continued on, showing more horrific experiments being conducted on both Pokemon and the Humans in the pods— different procedures, different means of dissection and injection, different chemical agents. Shandra shut the recording off, thoroughly disgusted by what she had seen.

Alex fell to her knees as she began gagging violently. Seeing the girl begin to vomit, Shandra knelt down beside her to make sure she was alright. “Why?” Alex managed to sputter out once she had recovered from her fit of vomiting.

“As I’ve said before,” H said. “Pokemon are tools, and we are tools to Pokemon.”

“But- but _**this**_ ,” Shandra objected as she placed a comforting hand on Alex’s shoulder.

“This is murder!” Alex screamed at H as tears dripped from her eyes into the puddle of her own vomit on the floor. “This is _worse_ than murder!”

Shandra felt disgusted. What had happened in this lab was worse than she could have possibly imagined, and Mr. Silver was to blame. As much as she didn’t want to, Shandra knew they had to watch the other videos. After making sure that Alex was okay, the blue-haired girl stood up and started the next video.

It started off a bit garbled, but it eventually came into focus. “We received new tissue samples from our benefactor a week ago,” the head scientist explained to the camera. “Preliminary results seem very promising.” Several scientists gathered around another pod as they began preparations for another procedure. The camera zoomed in on the pod, revealing the subject in the tube to be one of the clones used in Armstrong’s experiments. “Phase one: introduce the nano-” The video cut out for a moment as it was badly degraded.

“Phase Four successful. We will begin the next stage of the project,” the head scientist announced excitedly when the video cut back in. A bright glow emanated from the pod, making it impossible to see inside.

When the video ended, Shandra glanced over at H, then silently began the next video log.

Genesect poured into the facility through the warp gate, and many more swarmed around the outside. They moved through from room to room, slaughtering the scientists as they went. One busted through the hull from the outside into the administrative room, slamming into the door. The blast door slammed down and served it in half. The lab security door engaged. The Geneset finished slaughtering the scientists and made a move on the door. They fired several shots before faltering, turning on each other, and blasting each other to scraps.

“Well, at least we know what happened,” Arlon commented as the video ended. “Something caused them to turn on each other, and whatever it is, it’s through that door.” The mercenary hit the door console and raised his pistols. When the door finished opening, Arlon stepped through, scanning the room with his weapons.

Left with an uneasy feeling from the video logs, Shandra followed the Red Suns’ leader into the lab with her crewmates right behind her. Pods full of horribly mutated H clones lined the walls, each seemingly grafted with attributes from a different Pokemon. The body of the head scientist lay on the floor in the center of the room, a laser pistol by his head. Arlon walked over to the body and quickly examined it. “It looks like the bloody bastard shot himself,” he concluded.

“Whatever did all this must be in that room,” H said, pointing to a door on the far end of the lab.

“We should just leave,” Alex quickly responded. Shandra could hear the terror in the girl’s voice.

“Then what was the point of coming out here?” H asked.

“We should find out what’s in there,” Dmitri said.

The Romanov began walking toward the door, but Shandra placed a hand on his shoulder and stopped him from opening it. “Before we open Pandora’s Box, we should warn the others. Something very bad is in there and they should be prepared.”

“Shandra’s right,” Arlon agreed. “We should warn them. We might need to leave in a hurry. I’ll head back to the tram and send a message back to my team.”

As Arlon departed, Shandra’s thoughts turned to the door in front of them. _What could be so important that Silver and I were created to oversee their… production?_ The lights flickered as the tram presumably left, and Dmitri stood prodding one of the glass tubes with a candy bar. _Humans and Pokemon… these scientists were trying to create something from both of them._ Shandra shuddered as the thought came to her. _A being with the power of a Pokemon and the knowledge of a Human, if not more so of each._ The mere thought of such a thing was terrifying, and, looking at the failed experiments, it made her sick that she was once part of this unethical process.

At the sound of footsteps clanking on the metal floor of the corridor, Shandra looked back at the open security door to see Arlon walking into the room. “Alright, I sent the message through,” the mercenary announced. “Shall we?”

As the team gathered around the door, Dmitri raised his hand to the console and presses the button. The door slid open, and Arlon stepped inside. Shandra clenched her fists and followed the Red Suns’ leader into the dimly lit room.

Shandra was not prepared for what she found in the room. Surrounded by fragments of glass from a shattered pod that lay scattered across the floor, stood a horrible, twisted hybrid of a monster; it was an abomination. _This is Mr. Silver’s plan._ The thought sparked through Shandra’s mind as the realization dawned on her. _This is what we were designed for._ She felt disgusted. The Human morality now so intricately tied to her being was horrified that the seeds of life that she had sown as the Gardener were meant to create a new generation of these abominations.

H, however, seemed impressed. “Such Brilliance!” the cyborg declared. “But fate has ruled that I never lose. I shall surpass this, and all-” His words words were cut short as the air constricted around his throat, his feet lifted off the floor. The Pokemon’s eyes locked with his.

“ **Quiet, Human** ,” it spoke, radiating with a note of pure malice.  “ **From now on... _I_ am the one who makes the rules.** ”

Shandra could only look on in horror as the creature choked the life out of H. The cyborg could do little more than gasp for air. Shandra felt rooted to the spot as flashes of images and long-dormant memories rushed through her mind.

After several moments of stunned silence, it was Arlon who finally took action. The mercenary raised his pistols and opened fire, sending a flurry of laser fire flying across the room at the monstrosity standing before him. However, it was all for naught as the creature simply lifted a hand and raised a psionic barrier around itself, deflecting Arlon’s shots away like nothing.

“Fall back!” the Red Suns’ leader ordered the team as he reached for a Pokeball. He released his Hydreigon and jumped onto the Pokemon’s back. “Go! I’ll cover you!”

Following the mercenary’s command, Alex bolted out of the room and across the adjacent laboratory. Shandra moved to follow, but as Alex passed through the doorway, a wall of pure psychic energy quickly sealed off her escape.

Shandra turned back to see the creature launching a ball of energy at Arlon’s Hydreigon. With a powerful flap of her wings, the Pokemon pushed herself out of harm’s way as the attack soared past and slammed into the wall. “Hydra, Dark Pulse!” Arlon commanded his Pokemon. The Hydreigon unleashed a beam of dark energy at the abomination, punching a small hole in its barrier. The mercenary quickly followed up with a flurry of shots before the hole closed up.

While Arlon had the creature’s attention occupied, Dmitri raised his hand at the barrier blocking the door and emitted a small blast of ghostly energy, which just barely disrupted a small section big enough to fit through. The Romanov ran through the hole into the lab and began following after Alex.

Honing in on Arlon and his Pokemon, the abomination cast H aside and charged up a sphere of aura energy between its hands. The creature then lobbed the ball at Hydra, hitting the Pokemon dead on.

Shandra ducked as the Hydreigon flew over her, then tried to make her way over to H, who was picking himself up off the floor. _I can’t just leave him_ , she thought as she ran over to the cyborg. She placed a hand on him, then teleported herself into the station’s living quarters, bringing him with her.

“What did you teleport me here for?!” H shouted at Shandra, realizing that he was now in a new location. “I am the last person who needs saving here!” The cyborg immediately turned around and dashed back toward the battle at lightning speed.

As H disappeared from sight, there was suddenly a loud explosion and Shandra felt the air rushing past her. Over the sound of the roaring air being sucked out into space, Shandra could hear a faint scream. Just as quickly as it started, the noise stopped. A few seconds later, Alex ran into the room.

As the girl moved across the living quarters toward Shandra, the abomination suddenly appeared between them. Alex stopped in her tracks as the monster lifted her off her feet and began choking her as it had  done with H. “ **Your form is fragile** ,” the abomination’s voice sounded as it built up another ball of aura energy.

“ _ **Alex!**_ ” Shandra screamed as the creature unleashed its attack. Thinking quickly, Shandra swapped her position with Alex just before the ball of energy found its mark. Pain shot through Shandra’s body as the sphere made contact, but she didn’t care; if it meant protecting Alex, she would gladly take the pain. As she picked herself back up, Shandra saw Alex running out of the living quarters. She was glad the girl had escaped.

Before Shandra could follow, Arlon swooped into the room on his Hydreigon. “Hydra, Dragon Rush!” the mercenary commanded. The Pokemon seemed to glow with energy as it tore through the air toward the abomination. The Hydreigon collided with the creature with devastating force, completely shattering barrier surrounding it and knocking it back into the wall. Arlon immediately began firing his pistols at the now exposed monster, landing dozens of hits while his Pokemon lashed out at it with her smaller heads.

Quickly righting itself, the abomination unleashed a massive blast of aura energy, launching Arlon and his Hydreigon back into the corridor. The dragon Pokemon collapsed in a heap on top of her trainer, knocked completely unconscious by the creature’s overwhelming power.

Just as quickly as Arlon was blasted into the corridor, H came charging at full speed out of it. The cyborg threw himself at the abomination in attempt to tackle it out of the way to allow his crewmates to escape, but the creature simply lifted him off the ground using its powerful psychic capabilities, rendering him unable to move. In one swift motion, turn creature turned as launched H away with a blast of psychic energy. The cyborg sailed across the living quarters, colliding with Shandra along the way and knocking her to the floor. H continued on through the open door and smashed into the wall in the hallway. 

Picking herself up, Shandra spotted Dmitri running up behind the abomination while its back was turned. The Romanov cast out a blast of energy, which struck the creature squarely in its back. Even with its barriers broken, the abomination seemed unfazed by the attack. “ **You are as pathetic as the rest** ,” the creature declared as it turned to face Dmitri. With a simple flick of its wrist, the abomination conjured up a blast of psychic energy, slamming the Romanov into the nearest wall.

With the room clear, the monster then set its sights on Shandra. However, as it closed in, Arlon came charging in on the back of his Aggron. “Iron Tail!” the Red Suns’ leader commanded. His large metallic Pokemon complied, and smashed his powerful tail into the abomination, knocking it away from Shandra. The mercenary then leapt from the Aggron’s back, firing off another salvo of shots from his pistols before landing on his feet.

With the abomination distracted, Shandra seized the opportunity to hop  into warp space and prepare an attack. As she moved through the distorted swirls of blue and purple, she could see the battle raging around her. Blurred figures and shapes darted around the battlefield, circling a swirling mass of warp energy in the center that Shandra could only assume was the abomination. She moved towards the mass and dropped herself back into the fray. The monster seemed to know she was coming, and was ready for her as soon as she reappeared. Raising a single hand as Shandra reached out to strike, the creature unleashed a blast of psychic energy, propelling her backwards into the wall.

Shandra’s vision went blank as her head smashed into the hard metal surface. The back of her skull throbbed with pain as she slumped down to the floor. Slowly, her vision cleared and she was able to take in the battle playing out in front of her. She could hear voices issuing commands as H’s Trevenant and the abomination teleported about the room, dodging each other’s attacks. Sparks of energy exploded everywhere as the creature unleashed a pulse of darkness, which collided with the floor where H’s Pokemon had been standing mere milliseconds before.

“Gigan, X-Scissor!” Dmitri commanded his Scizor before running over to help Shandra up. As the Romanov pulled Shandra to her feet, his Pokemon swooped in at the abomination and slashed at it with her claws. 

“Ironhide, use Rockslide!” Arlon ordered a follow-up attack. His Aggron swiped his tail across the ground launching a pile of debris at the monster.

While it seemed to have taken quite a beating from the team’s combined assault, the abomination didn’t look like it was showing any sign of slowing down. “ **The time has come for you meet your end** ,” it project its thoughts out as it slowly floated toward the team. The whole station began to rumble as it focused its psionic energy.

“On the contrary!” H snapped, somehow enthusiastic about getting his ass handed to him. “It appears our true purpose has only just begun!”

“Run, _now!_ ” Arlon ordered as the lights began to flicker and station’s hull began to rupture. The team recalled their Pokemon and immediately began to retreat as fast as their legs could carry them. The room exploded in a massive psychic blast as the abomination pursued them. Shandra could feel the pull of the vacuum behind her as the monster closed in. “Get to the tram!” Arlon shouted over the roar of the rapidly moving air.

Picking up the pace, the team soon arrived at the platform and rapidly filed onto the tram where Alex stood waiting. “Close the door!” Shandra shouted to the girl.

Alex slammed her hand down on the button but the door remained open. “Nothing’s happening!” Alex cried in dismay as she mashed the button over and over.

“The blast must have blown the bloody power out!” Arlon shouted as he looked back at the rapidly approaching monster. “H, do something!”

“What do you want _me_ to do?” H asked, confused.

“Just zap the bloody thing!” Arlon shouted back at him.

H shrugged, then fired a bolt of electricity at the console. _Please work_ , Shandra thought as she crossed her fingers. The console sparked for a second, then the doors slid shut and the tram began to move. Shandra would have breathed a sigh of relief, but that monster was still closing in.

The abomination floated up to the platform and lifted H up with its psychic powers. The tram continued to move forward, forcing the cyborg up against the back window. “ **Your words are as empty as your future** ,” the abomination’s voice sounded once more as the tram pulled away. As they passed through the warp gate, H slumped against the wall, free from the abomination’s grasp.  
 _  
It’s finally over._

As soon as the tram ground to a halt, Arlon wasted no time in issuing commands to his waiting lieutenants. “Kiril, blow the gate!” the Red Suns’ leader shouted. “ _Now!_ ” 

The Romanov mercenary jumped to his feet and releases all his Pokemon. “Target the gate!” he commanded them. “Use Explosion!” The Gengar, the Weezing, and the two Electrodes quickly moved to the gate, detonated themselves, unleashing a massive explosion. Shandra braced herself against the wall as the blast rocked the entire tram.

When the smoke cleared, Shandra saw Kiril’s Pokemon lying unconscious around the now heavily damaged warp gate. “Throw some charges on that, mate,” Arlon said as he stepped out of the tram. Shandra pushed herself off the wall and followed the mercenary out.

“What _‘appened_ in zere?” Rena asked, her voice full of concern.

“A bloody nightmare, that’s what,” Arlon told her.

“The tram lead to a remote… laboratory,” Shandra elaborated. “They were conducting horrific experiments there…” She pulled out her Pokedex and started one of the video files she had downloaded while the rest of the team filed out of the tram. Seeing the video, Alex immediately turned her head and moved away from the group.

“ _Disgusting_ ,” Rena said upon seeing the scientists conduct their experiments.

“The results of the experiments,” Shandra continues, starting up the final security clip of the Genesect killing the scientists, then destroying each other.

“Here,” H interrupted, pulling out his own Pokedex. “I recorded this with my eyes. It is most intriguing.” The Red Suns turned their attention to the cyborg as he started up his recorded footage of the team’s encounter with the abomination.

“What the hell is that?” Luke asked in awe upon seeing the creature in action.

“Mr. Silver’s goal, it seems, mate,” Arlon told him.

“That thing is a major threat to everyone in the Galaxy,” Petra chimed in.

“That’s a bloody understatement,” Arlon replied. “But we don’t have the strength to stop it— not on our own. Look, let’s get back to the ships and come up with some kind of plan. We need to act fast.”

* * *

“You’re saying there’s _more_ of these bloody things?” Arlon stared at Shandra in disbelief. _Well, that’s just great._

“If Mr. Silver is to be believed, then yes,” the blue-haired girl responded. “His goal is to create an entire generation of them.”

“ _Shit_. We need to warn the Federation, not that they’d believe us.” The Red Suns’ leader gazed out into space through the _Helix_ ’s front viewport. “They only take action against threats they can understand.”

“It can’t hurt to try asking for their help, though,” Dmitri suggested.

“Of course not,” Arlon agreed. “But we’ll definitely need to get help elsewhere. I’ll get back to the _Corsair_ so I can contact the rest of my-”

“Uh, guys,” Minerva, the _Helix_ ’s new pilot suddenly interrupted. “I’m picking up a really weird warp signature here. Some kinda strange ship.”

Arlon quickly shifted his gaze to the console and checked the readings. The strength of the warp signature was off the charts, but the spacial distortion was incredibly small. _Bloody hell._ “That’s no ship, luv. That bloody thing followed us! We need to leave, _right now!_ Get this ship moving!”

While Minerva disengaged the airlock, Arlon radioed the _Corsair_. “Matt, get ready to jump!”

“Arlon, what’s going on?” Rena voice sounded on the radio.

“That thing is back; we need to leave!”

“But you are still on the _‘elix_.”

“No time! We need to be gone before it arrives. I’ll hitch a ride with the _Helix_ and meet up with you back on Harmonia.”

Turning back toward the viewport, Arlon saw a flash of warp energy as the abomination appeared.  “We need to get out of here,” Shandra said as the _Corsair_ jumped away. She reached for the console, her mark radiating with the powers of the Warp. “I think I know I guy who can help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a really fun chapter to write. I started work on it while waiting for Shane's player to work on the previous chapter and basically finished it before the last one was done, save for a few bits. There are two things I aimed to do with this chapter. The first was to show the events of Volume 2, Chapter 27 and Volume 3, Chapter 1 as one continuous scene through the perspective of one character and the other was to show how Arlon being there instead of Morgan changed things up.
> 
> The first major difference we see right off the bat is the lack of Federation soldiers since the crew didn’t get the Federation’s help in this Universe. I still wanted to show the importance of Dmitri’s brand from Darkrai so I managed to keep that detail worked in. I think the way I included it still manages to capture the direness of situation they are in now, even without all the dead soldiers to drive home the message. Writing the scene from a character’s perspective also helped with that.
> 
> Given that Arlon is there this time, I showed him being a bit more tactical, sweeping each room as they proceeded forward to the end. I also made sure to work in some details about him not knowing everything about what the Helix crew had been up to since he left.
> 
> Of course, the major difference in this chapter comes after the Mewtwo reveal. Of all the PCs, Arlon was the most equipped to deal with a boss fight of this caliber, both in terms of what Pokemon he has and his class build. Having a level 50 Hydreigon with the Twisted Power and Polycephaly abilities, combined with Arlon being a Rider, a Hunter, and an Ace Trainer, meant he was dishing out a ton of damage to that Mewtwo. Even without the fact that Dark is super effective against Psychic. That Dragon Rush it used dished out a ton of damage. This is going to really get into the nitty-gritty of the system, but from Rider, Arlon had the Overrun feature which let the Hydreigon add its speed stat to the Dragon Rush along with its Attack Stat, in addition to its Twisted Power ability allowing it to add half its Special Attack. Then its Polycephaly ability allowed it to get off a free struggle attack on it. On top of that, thanks to Arlon’s Hunter class, he has the Pack Hunt ability which let him get off a free hit for each of his Hydreigon’s melee attacks that hit the Mewtwo. Damage.
> 
> That also had some implications for the flow of battle. The Mewtwo prioritized Arlon and his Pokemon as a target, so Dmitri didn’t end up getting knocked out. So then he got to have his Scizor out doing some damage. The party as a whole was just dishing out that much more damage. Being a boss, the Mewtwo had multiple health bars, and we didn’t end up breaking one in the original fight, but the party in this universe sure as hell did. In PTU, bosses will frequently have a special action they perform when a health bar breaks, such as curing statuses or gaining combat stages. In this case, I remember the GM mentioning a while after the fight that the Mewtwo would perform a super powerful attack in the form of blowing up part of the station, so I made sure to work that in. It made the fight that much more intense, and it was the perfect way to close it out.
> 
> Finally, we have one scene that’s not part of the continuous flow of the first. This was in place of the scene on the bridge of the Dreadnought in the original chapter. There are two main points here. One is that without having to deal with getting the Federation fleet to do they wanted them to do, the Helix and Corsair were able to escape before the Mewtwo showed up. Without a fleet to play with it probably would have destroyed both ships right away. The other main point is that Arlon was on the Helix and didn’t want to waste valuable time going back to the Corsair, so he’s going to be on the Helix for a little more. That’s right, I found a way to justify Arlon rejoining the party, at least for a few more chapters, so that all the combat encounters are still scaled appropriately, not to mention the fact that this opens up a lot of doors for plot deviation!


	11. Distance

“So this Darkrai thing, you fought it in a dream?”

Shandra leaned back in the pilot’s seat as she glanced over at Arlon, who was looking over the _Helix_ ’s mission logs. “Something like that,” she told the mercenary. “I wasn’t there, but from what I understand, that’s not inaccurate.”

“Interesting…” Arlon stroked his facial scruff as he glanced down at the logs again. “And it gave Dmitri some kind of power like yours?” The Red Suns’ leader nodded toward Shandra’s glowing mark, which was placed upon the navigation console, steering the ship deeper into the Void of the Warp.

“Not like mine, no.” Shandra let out a slight laugh. “I don’t even think he’s figured exactly out how it works yet.”

“Well, it seemed to help somewhat back on the station. Hopefully it can give us an edge the next time we face that bloody creature…” Arlon trailed off, returning his focus to the ship’s mission logs.

In the silence that followed, Shandra shifted her attention back to what she was doing as well. It was eerily quiet. With control of the ship out of her hands, Minerva had retired to her room, while the others had scattered as well. Shandra could only assume that, after the events on the station, her crewmates needed some time to recuperate. She was a bit worried about Alex, but there really wasn’t anything she could do at the moment. Shandra tightened her grip on the console. The closer the _Helix_ got to the heart of the Void, the more she needed to focus her will.

“So where are we headed anyway?”

Shandra looked over to see Arlon gazing out the front viewport into the swirling strands of warp energy. “You haven’t figured it out yet?” she asked the mercenary.

Arlon smirked. “I suppose it is that obvious. I thought this felt familiar. You’re taking us back to Giratina, aren’t you, luv?”

“Who else?”

“You really think it can help stop that thing?”

“I certainly hope so…” Shandra trailed off, and the bridge fell into silence once more. _Will Giratina’s power be enough?_ she wondered.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by the sound of footsteps. Shandra turned her head to see Alex walking onto the bridge. “Hey,” she greeted the Sinai girl, flashing a warm smile. However, the smile quickly disappeared as Alex drew closer. She looked quite distressed. “Are you alright?”

“Can we talk?” Alex asked nervously, placing a hand on Shandra’s arm. Shandra could feel it trembling.

“What’s wrong?” Shandra asked, looking up at Alex from her seat.

“I… About earlier… That _monster_ … And then you got hurt and I… I- I’m sorry I ran…”

“There’s no need to apologize,” Shandra assured the girl. “You were scared. We all were.”

“That doesn’t make it okay. You took another hit for me and I repaid you by running away…”

Shandra reached out with her free hand and grabbed onto Alex’s. “Hey, it’s not your fault. I’d do anything to protect you. You know that, right?”

Alex nodded, but she still had a worried expression on her face.

“It’s going to be okay,” Shandra continued. “I know you’re scared, but we’ll face that monster together. We’ll find a way to stop it.” She scooched herself back in her seat and motioned Alex to sit. “C’mere.”

The Sinai girl plopped herself down on the seat and Shandra wrapped her free arm around her, pulling her into a hug.

* * *

Silence filled the bridge as Shandra continued to move the _Helix_ deeper into the Void. Arlon had fallen silent again, engrossed in the mission logs, and Alex had fallen asleep. Shandra’s marked arm rested on the console as she steered the ship through warp space, while the other lay across the sleeping girl, whose head now rested against her shoulder.

“Well, you lot have certainly been up to some _interesting_ things the past few months,” Arlon suddenly said, breaking the silence. Shandra looked over to see the mercenary leaning back in his seat.

“That’s one way to put it,” the blue-haired girl replied.

“I have to say, luv, things are starting to make a lot more sense now that I’ve read through your mission logs,” Arlon continued.

“That’s good to hear, I think.”

“Indeed,” the mercenary replied as he put his feet up on the console. “So, when did this start?” he asked after a brief pause, glancing at the sleeping Alex.

“Oh,” Shandra responded, a bit surprised by the question. “We’ve been together for about a month. Since Darkrai…”

“I see. Well, you seem hap-”

The sound of rapidly approaching metallic footsteps cut the mercenary’s words short. Shandra turned her head to see H stepping onto the bridge. “Hey, H,” she greeted her crewmate.

“How’s it going, mate?” Arlon asked.

“You have stood in my way for the last time!” H shouted at Shandra, ignoring the mercenary entirely. “Release me from this prison!” The crazed cyborg leapt at Shandra, tackling her and the sleeping Alex in her arms to the floor. The _Helix_ shook violently as it was flung out of control into the Warp.

“Bloody hell!” Arlon shouted. From her new position on the floor, Shandra could see the Red Suns’ leader wrestling with the controls.

“Ha! Take this!” H shouted as Shandra picked herself up. “Belly-pogo augment Number D!” His belly-pogo flung out of his chest compartment with a boxing glove and clocked Shandra in the face, knocking her back to the floor.

“What the hell is going on!?” Alex shouted in confusion, having been violently awoken from her slumber.

Suddenly, Dmitri rushed onto the bridge and attempted to subdue H with his psionic abilities. In one swift motion, H leapt to his feet and avoided Dmitri’s blast of hypnotic energy. The cyborg then proceeded to pick up the dazed Shandra and toss her across the bridge. Seeing the wall rapidly approach, Shandra teleported herself behind her assailant to avoid further injury.

Her glowing arm surging with energy and glowing a shocking shade of purple, Shandra prepared to strike. “Where are you?!” H shouted, his back still facing her. “Your silly mental tricks will not subdue me!” As the cyborg turned around to face her, Shandra struck him full force and sent him flying across the bridge in return.

Calmly, Shandra wiped a small trickle of blood from her lip, then turned to help Alex up. “You okay?” she asked the girl after pulling her to her feet. Alex nodded.

Shandra then turned back to the pilot’s seat. “Someone deal with him,” she said as she plopped herself down and placed her marked hand back upon the navigation console.

With the ship now safely back on course to the Void, Arlon eased off the controls. “You good, luv?” he asked Shandra.

“Yup,” the blue-haired girl answered. “I got it from here.”

“Alright then,” the mercenary responded. He then turned to Dmitri. “C’mon, mate, let’s deal with this bloody fool.” The two picked the now-unconscious H up off the floor and carried him away, leaving Shandra and Alex alone on the bridge.

* * *

Eventually, after what felt like hours, or perhaps even days, the _Helix_ arrived at its destination: the heart of the Void. Shandra let out a relieved sigh as she removed her marked hand from the navigation console. She clenched her fingers into a fist, then relaxed them once more. It felt so good to move them freely after they had been in one place for so long.

Shandra then tapped Alex, who was once again asleep in her arms, lightly on the shoulder. “Huh?” the girl moaned groggily as her eyes fluttered open.

“We’re here,” Shandra explained.

Alex stood up and stretched. “And where is here?” the Sinai girl asked.

“The Void,” Arlon answered as he took his feet down from the console. The mercenary stood up and glanced out the viewport. “Home of Giratina.”

As if on cue, a massive shadow flew over the top of the front viewport. Shandra recognized the serpentine form of Giratina wrapping itself around the _Helix_. The Pokemon’s devilish face neared the viewport as it curiously gazed into the ship.

“Woah…” Alex gasped. Her voice was full of awe, but Shandra thought she could detect a hint of fear.

The blue-haired girl placed a reassuring hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “It’s not going to hurt us.”

“So, what’s the plan, luv?” Arlon asked.

“Now I get it’s attention.” With that, Shandra turned and walked off the bridge.

“Hey, where are you going?” Alex called after her as she moved down the corridor toward the airlock.

Shandra didn’t quite know how to explain, so she remained quiet. She wasn’t even sure if she understood it herself. Ever since she first saw that abomination, Shandra’s memories of being the Gardener had slowly been returning to her. It was all still a jumbled mess, but Shandra was sure of one thing: despite being responsible for seeding the Galaxy with life, she had no hand in the creation of Giratina. _That must mean_ **something**.  
  
Suddenly, Shandra felt a sharp tug on her arm. She turned to see Alex just behind her. “Can you just stop for a second?” the girl asked. “What are you even doing? Why are we here?”

“You know how I’m the Gardener?” Shandra asked calmly in return.

“Mhm,” Alex answered with a nod.

“Well, back on the station, when I saw that monster… I remembered everything… from before the sphere crashed… I remember everything… from the moment they created me.”

“Everything?” Alex asked in surprise.

“ _Everything_.”

“So then what are we doing now?”

“There are a few things that I _don’t_ remember,” Shandra continued. “And one of them is creating this thing.” She turned and pointed to the massive Pokemon flying around the outside of the _Helix_ through the small viewport on the airlock doors. “Which means I didn't.”

“But what are you _actually_ gonna do right now?” Alex asked.

“You know, when you put it that way, I don’t really know,” Shandra told her. She reached out and put her hands on the girl’s arms. “Just stay right here, and I’ll be back before you know it.” She turned back to the airlock and stepped inside. Once the interior doors shut behind her, Shandra opened the exterior doors and let herself fall into the Void, directly at Giratina.

As Shandra drifted away from the _Helix_ , Giratina flew past her. She turned her head to see it sitting in the airlock, despite it being far larger than the airlock itself. _Wait, no. Goddamn it_ , she thought as she flailed around to adjust her view. In an instant, Shandra teleported herself back into the airlock and shut the door. Unfazed, Giratina warped itself into the corridor on other side of the door.

Shandra sighed, then opened the door to see Alex staring in confusion at the Pokemon. Giratina flew down the corridor, warping the very space around it. Shandra herself was even having a bit of difficulty wrapping her head around what she was seeing, so she could only imagine what must have been going on inside Alex’s head.

Just then, Arlon and Dmitri emerged from around the bend on the far side of the corridor, which now seemed to stretch on for miles. Then, in an instant, the pair had crossed it. “Bloody hell!” Arlon exclaimed in surprise and confusion. “Am I going mad again?”

“Giratina is just distorting space around it,” Shandra explained. “Try not to think too hard about it.”

Turning her attention back to Giratina, Shandra poked the Pokemon with her branded hand, immediately capturing its attention. Giratina looked intently at Shandra’s mark with a look of what she perceived to be confusion. It didn’t seem to remember her, or the brand it had given her. _Does it not have a concept of object permanence?_

Shandra created a small ball of warp with her hand, and Giratina immediately flew into the palm of her hand. _Okay, this is weird._ The Pokemon, which was much bigger than Shandra, was somehow occupying the small sphere in her hand. _Let’s try this._ Shandra pulled out an Ultra Ball with her free hand and slammed it down on Giratina, but it just phased inside of the Pokemon. _I don’t think I can actually capture this thing._ Shandra retracted her hand, pulling the ball back out. Giratina then turned away and began flying down the hallway.

As the serpentine Pokemon glided away, Alex grabbed onto one of the spikes protruding from its side. The girl swung herself up onto Giratina’s back as it continued to fly down the corridor. “Alex, wait!” Shandra called after her as she began to pursue. She didn’t want her to get hurt.

The others close behind, Shandra chased after Giratina as the hallways and elevator shafts unfolded into a straight line before it. Slowly, the Pokemon pulled away and the path continued to distort, leaving each of its pursuers stranded on a free-floating platform along a twisted and distorted path of walls, floors, and ceilings. Driven to ensure Alex’s safety, Shandra quickly leapt forward and kicked herself off the nearest floating wall. Jumping from platform to platform, wall to ceiling to floor, Shandra continued her pursuit.

Eventually, Shandra landed on a platform with a door. She could hear Alex crying out in pain on the other side, so she didn’t hesitate to kneel down and drop through. On the other side, Shandra was greeted with the sight of Giratina, with Alex still clinging to its back, sitting in the warp field generated by the ship’s warp drive.

“Alex!” Shandra shouted. Without a single moment of hesitation, Shandra swapped her position with Alex’s, safely pulling the girl out of the Warp and leaving herself riding on Giratina’s back. The space around Shandra began to warp and distort at an increasing rate as realization filled her. In that moment, she became keenly aware of what the Warp actually was. It _was_ Giratina, and Giratina was Space itself. She realized that Giratina was the sole reason that all warp technology worked, why _Space_ worked.

 _Here goes nothing_ , Shandra thought as she placed her marked hand on top of Giratina’s head. It sparked some kind of reaction, and she could feel even more power flowing through her. She kicked her feet off of Giratina, launching herself back onto the floor, outside of the warp reaction. The mark now extended much further, almost to the shoulder, and it hurt like hell. “Well, that wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but thanks, I guess,” she said aloud. The ship, for the most part, had returned to some semblance of euclidean normality.

Shandra then shifted her attention to Alex, who was lying curled up on the floor. “Are you alright?” she asked the girl as she crouched beside her, her voice full of concern. Shandra took Alex in her arms and held her close.

“You saved me again,” Alex spoke softly. The girl smiled weakly as she reached up, brushing Shandra’s face with her fingertips. “Thank you.”

“Seriously, don't worry about it,” Shandra said, smiling. “I know you’d do the same for me.”

She stood up, then pulled Alex to her feet. “C’mon, let’s get out of here,” she said.

The pair stepped through the doorway and, thanks to Shandra’s new understanding of the nature of the Void, they were suddenly on the bridge. As Alex looked around to get her bearings again, Shandra approached the navigation console, then placed her hand on it once more. _Alright, let’s do this_. She focused on returning the ship to normal space, and began affecting the Warp around the Helix. 

Shandra knew that it would be risky to simply return the ship to where it had been because that abomination might be waiting for them, so she began thinking of an alternative destination. Her first inclination was to transport the ship to the complete opposite end of the Galaxy, but that would land them in Romanov space. _Where, then?_ she asked herself. She glanced the side and noticed Alex plopping herself down in one of the empty seats. _That’s it!_

The _Helix_ began rapidly ascending through the layers of warp space— much faster than it had traveled on the trip into the Void— and emerged right on the surface of the planet Vandia. _Oh, fuck._ Out the front viewport, Shandra watched as the ship tore across the very same cabbage field it crashed in two months ago as it slowly ground to a halt.

Once the ship had settled, Shandra sighed and reached for the comms. “Ladies and gentlemen, the _Helix_ has landed.”

* * *

“Would somebody please explain why we are back on this worthless planet, of all places?” H demanded.

“ _Hey_ ,” Alex protested against the cyborg’s description of her home planet. “I grew up here you know!”

“Exactly,” H fired back at the Sinai girl. “Now, someone tell me what we’re doing here.”

Shandra sighed. With the _Helix_ safely out of the Void, the ship’s crew had reconvened on the bridge and H, who was once again conscious and back to his normal self, had been quite unhappy to find that they were once again on this particular planet. The cyborg’s incessant complaining was starting to get on Shandra’s nerves.

“We’re here because it’s not where we were,” she explained after a brief pause. “It is very far away from where we were. I wanted to get us as far away from that abomination as possible, and there was no way I was going to take us into Romanov Space. So that’s why we’re back here on Vandia.”

“ _Wonderful_ ,” H grumbled.

“Quit complaining, mate,” Arlon told the cyborg. “This planet can’t be that bad. Now, I think the more pressing question is what our little field trip actually accomplished.” The Red Suns’ leader looked expectantly at Shandra.

“Right,” the blue-haired girl agreed. “I’m pretty sure I got what I was looking for by going to see Giratina… a way to increase the power I received from it the last time we visited it, since I’m sure we’ll need every edge we can get against that monster. What I actually got wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but I think it will help.”

“And what, exactly, did you get out of all that, luv?” Arlon asked.

“A deeper understanding of what Giratina actually is, more or less.” Shandra noticed Arlon’s eyebrow raise at her explanation. “This is going to sound like Sinai bullshit,” she warned as she continued. “But Giratina is _literally_ everywhere at once. It is the physical manifestation of Space itself.”

“Well, that’s certainly unexpected,” Arlon commented. “So how does this help us?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, we exited the Void much faster than we entered it,” Shandra told the mercenary, a slight smirk forming on her face. “And we dropped right onto a planet. Assuming I know the destination, I’m pretty sure I can warp us anywhere... _instantly_.” Shandra snapped her fingers for emphasis and a few sparks of warp emerged.

“Well, that ought to come in handy,” Arlon responded. “Now, I think we really should be on our way. I would like to meet back up with the rest of the Red Suns on Harmonia so we can plan our next move.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Shandra agreed. “I’ll warp us there.”

“Wait, hold on,” Alex spoke up. “Before we go, I wanna go home and get my stuff since you didn’t let me take anything with me last time.”

“That’s because you snuck onto the ship and started breaking my stuff,” H berated her.

“I didn’t break anything!” the girl shouted back. “You’re just a stupid asshole!” With that, she stormed off the bridge.

“Quickly, let us leave while she’s  gone,” H exclaimed.

“No, H,” Shandra responded. “I’m not leaving her. In fact, I’m gonna go help her get her stuff.” She turned and followed Alex off the bridge, leaving H to quietly seeth. Shandra reveled in this petty show of spite towards the cyborg.

* * *

Alex briskly walked away from the _Helix_ in a huff. _H is such a jerk_ , she thought as she neared the edge of the cabbage field. _Why can’t he just be nice for once?_  
  
“Hey, wait up!”

At the sound of Shandra’ voice, Alex turned to see the blue-haired girl running after her. The Sinai girl slowed her pace, allowing Shandra to catch up. “Hey,” Alex greeted her with a smile. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Shandra replied. “I just thought I’d come give you a hand getting your stuff.”

“Oh, well, uh… thanks. You don’t have to...”

“But I want to.” Shandra grabbed Alex’s hand. “You should know that by now.” Alex nodded and tightened her grip on Shandra’s hand. Together, the two set out across the familiar plains of the Sinai girl’s home planet.

As they continued on, Alex leaned her head against Shandra. “I’m really glad I met you,” the Sinai girl said.

“Me too,” Shandra replied. “Meeting you was one of the best things that ever happened to me.”

The two crested a hill and Alex spotted the crashed half ship that she used to call home. “There it is!” the girl called out. She wasn’t quite sure why, but the thought of showing Shandra her former home filled her with excitement. “C’mon!” Alex shouted as she broke into a run, pulling Shandra along with her. “I can’t wait to show you!”

It wasn’t long before the two girls were standing outside the crashed and abandoned ship. “You used to live here?” Shandra asked curiously as they entered.

“Mhm,” Alex replied. “For a few years.”

“I’m sorry you were alone for so long.”

“I wasn’t alone, I had my Pokemon with me.”

They passed through a few doorways and arrived in the part of the ship that Alex used as her living space. It looked exactly how she left it two months ago when she left. “It’s like I never left…” the girl said as she gazed around her room. “So, uh… this is it,” she said as her eyes fell upon Shandra, who was curiously looking around the room. “I know it’s not much, but…”

“...It’s something, right?” Shandra said. “So, where do we start?”

“Oh, um, let’s see…” Alex looked around the room in search for a box amongst all the scattered trinkets and Pokeball parts. “Where did I put that stupid crate? Aha, there!” The girl pointed across the room to a large metal box in the far corner, hidden underneath a pile of junk. “Wanna pull that crate out and start filling it with those Pokeball parts there?”

Shandra nodded, then got to work. She fished out the crate and started loading it up with the Pokeball parts and finished Pokeballs that were scattered across Alex’s work table.

While Shandra took care of that, Alex began collecting her personal effects from around the room. It mostly amounted to random trinkets the girl had collected, but she was fond of them nonetheless. Of course, there were a few objects of far more value to her that she wouldn’t have left behind if she had been given a choice. Most important to Alex was an old copy of the Sinai bible that Raj, her mentor when she was living in the Ninauli Monastery, had given her. She carefully lifted the ancient book from the shelf it sat upon, then gently placed it into the crate.

“Alright, what next?” Shandra asked. Alex looked over to see that she had cleared off the work table.

“Just this stuff here,” Alex answered, pointing at her desk. Shandra crossed the room and began moving the stuff off the desk while Alex continued to work on the shelf.

“Hey, what’s this?” Shandra suddenly asked. Alex looked over the see the blue-haired girl reaching toward a holo-frame sitting on the desk.

“No, don’t!” Alex shouted, but it was too late. The image stored in the frame sprang onto the screen at Shandra’s touch; it displayed a picture of Alex with the girl who had once been the most important person in her life. The Sinai girl braced herself for some sort of adverse reaction, but it didn’t come.

“This is the girl you told me about, isn’t it?” Shandra asked as Alex walked over to the desk.

“Yeah…” Alex trailed off as her thoughts drifted back to her days with Naomi. She hadn’t thought about them much since meeting Shandra. _Those days are long gone now_. “I couldn’t let go,” she finally said after several moments. “She meant so much to me, then she was gone… But then I met you, and…”

“I understand,” Shandra interrupted in the momentary pause. She pulled Alex into a hug and just held the girl against herself. “I’m here to stay.” Alex happily stood there in Shandra’s embrace. With all the craziness that had happened recently, she was glad that Shandra was there to help her through it all.

“We’d better get back to the ship,” Shandra said after several minutes had passed. “I’m sure they’re all wondering what’s taking so long.”

“Right,” Alex agreed. She picked up the frame and tossed it into the box, then gathered up the last of her belongings. Once it was all packed up, Alex pulled out a Pokeball modified for storage and pressed it against the box. The ball pulled the box and its contents inside, allowing Alex to just drop it into her bag.

“Those storage balls certainly come in handy,” Shandra commented.

“Ha ha, yeah,” Alex laughed.

“Shall we?” Shandra asked, motioning toward the exit.

Alex took one last look around before following Shandra out. As she walked down the corridor, the girl suddenly felt a strange throbbing sensation in the back of her mind. She stopped in her tracks, and shook her head back and forth, trying to clear her thoughts. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to help at all.

“You alright, Alex?” Shandra asked, looking back at the girl.

“I don’t know,” Alex answered. “That Giratina thing must have messed with my head,” she reasoned, recalling the spatial distortions in the Void.

“We can have MARIA check you out when we get back to the ship,” Shandra suggested.

“It’s probably nothing,” Alex responded. “It’ll probably pass now that we’re back in a place where things make sense and this 9.38 meter hallway is actually 9.38 meters… Wait… Why do I know that?” She looked at Shandra for some kind of answer, but the blue-haired girl simply looked back, a confused expression on her face.

As she looked at Shandra, Alex was bombarded with a wave of precise numbers and measurements. The girl shut her eyes tight, hoping they would go away.

“Alex, you’re scaring me,” Shandra finally said. “What’s going on?”

“I… don’t know,” Alex answered. “Like… I know how big everything is. It’s weird.”

“Alright, now you’re starting to confuse me,” Shandra told her. “What are you talking about?”

“Just by looking at things, I know their size,” Alex attempted to explain. “Like, you’re 1.727 meters tall, and your eyes are 24.2 millimeters wide, and your shortest eyelash is 7.4 millimeters and your longest one is 7.9, and-”

“That’s creepy,” Shandra cut her off.

“But why do I know that?!” Alex shouted. “What’s happening to me?!”

“I’m not sure, but I think I know _why_ it’s happening,” Shandra answered. “You were only in that warp reaction for a few seconds, but it must have affected you somehow.”

Alex’s face went blank from the realization, before the girl fell to her knees and started crying.

“Whoa, hey, you alright?” Shandra asked, kneeling down to comfort Alex.

The girl tilted her head back to reveal that she was pretending, before jokingly bawling, “I didn't get a magic tattoo!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, we’ve got a lot of differences here. There was a lot that we decided to change up from Volume 3, Chapter 2 here. Since we had Arlon on the ship this time, I thought it’d be fun to give him and Shandra this sort of buddy moment on the bridge where he was looking over the mission logs (something he did a bit later on in the canon storyline) and they were just shooting the shit a bit. I’m happy with how that bit turned out. The first real big change was what we did with Alex. In the original she tried to find medication to help her, but we thought we could try some different scenarios. With Morgan gone, we could’ve had Alex take something else by accident, but we ended up deciding that with her relationship with Shandra, Alex would just go to her for comfort.
> 
> Of course, not everything has to change. H’s shenanigans were too great to not include again, so that little bit played out more or less exactly how it did in the original. As did the encounter with Giratina itself, save for a few dialogue changes. With Alex not high on sedatives, and Morgan gone, it made sense to make the exchange that was originally between Shane and Morgan and make it between Shandra and Alex. I’m very happy with how that part turned out. I also reworked the descriptions of Giratina’s spatial distortions to be more descriptive and just paint the picture better. And, of course, we gave the fact that Shandra rescued Alex with Ally Switch again new meaning thanks to their relationship. It’s kind of funny how many times that it’s happened.
> 
> Since we’ve been bleeding the lines between original chapters and sessions to tell the best story, it made the most sense to include some pieces from Volume 3, chapter 3 to end it. The dialogue that opened that chapter needed some tweaking to account for Morgan no longer being present, but other than that it was mostly the same. The major difference here is that Shandra went with Alex to get her stuff instead of Alex going solo. It gave us the ability to give them some more bonding moments, plus I got to play around with a different version of the scene with Naomi’s photo. We also needed to rework Alex’s ability manifesting, so we pulled some of Alex’s and Shane’s lines from when Alex returned to the ship in the canon storyline, whipped up some new bits, and put it all together. The humorous ending was all Shane's player!


	12. Infiltration

By the time Alex and Shandra returned to the  _Helix_ , Alex was starting to get used to the constant flow of measurements her brain was now processing. It still felt extremely weird, but it was no longer disorienting her, at least not as much.

“What’s with you?” H asked when the pair rejoined the others on the bridge, seeing the strange expression on Alex’s face.

“Giratina messed with my head or something,” the girl informed him. “I can just tell how big everything is now.”

“What do you mean?” H asked, not seeming to grasp the explanation.

Alex focused on the cyborg, and was once again bombarded with information. “Like, the distance between the floor and the tip of your hair is exactly 1.805 meters,” she said, picking one of the various measurements she was now aware of at random.

“Remarkable,” H responded.

“Wait a minute,” Arlon interjected. “How do we even know if she’s telling the truth?”

Alex gave the mercenary an annoyed glance. “Why would I make this up?” she asked him.

“She’s correct, though,” H said, turning to Arlon. “That measurement is right.”

“And you just happen to know that number off the top of your head, mate?” Arlon asked incredulously.

“Yes,” H answered curtly. The cyborg then turned back to Alex. “Quickly, we must test this!”

In rapid succession, H quizzed Alex on the dimensions of each of his augmentations, and every time the girl correctly stated their measurements.  _What is this even accomplishing?_  Alex wondered.

“Fascinating,” H mumbled to himself after running through all his questions. “Now, try this.” The cyborg pulled out a bouncy ball from his lab coat and held it up.  _Where’d he even get that from?_ “Tell me where this would bounce to.”

Alex shook her head. “I don’t know,” she told the cyborg. “I can’t tell how hard you’re throwing it.”

“Hmm, that’s an unfortunate limitation, but… I know you have never said yes to this, but if I could give you a brain implant like the others, this could be an incredibly useful tool.”

“No way! You’re not getting anywhere  _near_ my brain!”

“At least reconsider,” H insisted. “This could be useful to us.”

“H, drop it,” Shandra warned the cyborg.

“But we could finally have a use for her,” H responded. “Surely you can’t be-”

There was an audible thud as Shandra smacked the cyborg on the back of the head, cutting his words short. Alex couldn’t help but snicker.  _Serves you right, jerkface_.

“What was that for?” H demanded.

“You  _know_ what that was for,” Shandra snapped back.

“What are you derps arguing about now?” Minerva asked as she walked onto the bridge. The pilot walked right between H and Shandra and plopped herself down in the pilot’s seat. “You have a missed call, by the way.” She hit a button on the console and brought it up onto the screen. “Huh, it’s the same callsign as before.”

“Before?” Shandra asked curiously.

“This guy called during the conference,” Minerva explained. “And again while we were on Nerva. Said he needed to talk to you about something important.”

“Did he say what his name was?” Shandra asked.

“Aarn something? Honda? Hondo? Something like that.”

“Aarn Hondo?” Arlon asked. “The smuggler?”

“That’s the one,” Minerva answered.

The name meant nothing to Alex, but, looking around the room, the others all seemed to recognize it.  _He must be important._

“What did he want?” Shandra asked.

“I don’t know,” Minerva replied. “You’ll have to listen to the message.”

Shandra walked up to the console and started the message. The face of a man Alex assumed to be Aarn Hondo appeared on the viewscreen. “Hello, my name is Aarn Hondo. I gave you your warp drive, if you’ll recall. I have been trying to reach you for a while now. Gilgamesh asked me to speak with you. There are important things we must discuss. Meet me at these coordinates.” The message ended, displaying a set of coordinates back in Alliance space.

“That seems important,” Arlon commented. “I think we’d best meet up with him. Harmonia can wait.”

“Agreed,” Shandra concurred. She placed her marked hand on the console and blipped the ship back into warp space.

* * *

Silence permeated the air within the briefing room where Arlon, along with his friends in the  _Helix_  crew, stood at the holotable across from Hondo and the Alliance paramilitary commander who had introduced himself as Rodriguez. Upon arriving at the coordinates the smuggler captain had provided, the  _Helix_ had docked with the station owned by OmniGuard Industries located there. Hondo and Rodriguez had wasted no time in getting them up to speed on the mission they had been working alongside Gilgamesh to complete, including the discovery of the Eye of Aether. Unfortunately, the mission hadn’t gone as planned, and Gilgamesh had perished during the operation...

“That’s unfortunate,” Arlon said, finally breaking the silence. He knew the monk had recruited Hondo to help locate some sort of artifact— the smuggler had told him that much the last time they spoke— and he even knew it was something important because Hondo had mentioned Mr. Silver was involved, but it hadn’t occurred to him that it would be  _this_  important. “His knowledge on these sorts of things would be helpful right about now…”

“He seemed to believe that your friends here knew something about all this as well,” Hondo replied, motioning toward the  _Helix_ crew. “Maybe even more than him. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know half of what went on in that man’s head, but… he seemed to regard you all as our last hope.”

“That’s certainly a compliment,” Shandra said.

“Regardless, did he at least die for  _something?_ ” H asked.

Rodriguez stepped up to the holotable. “He died so that we could escape,” he answered. “So that we could tell you.”

“Well, great job,” H replied sarcastically. “You didn’t even acquire the thing you went there to get.”

“No,” Rodriguez responded. “But we know where it is at least.”

“You know where it  _was_ ,” H corrected him, completely unimpressed.

The commander seemed confused. “What do you mean?”

“How do you know it’s still there now?” Dmitri clarified. By the look on Rodriguez’s face, it was quite obvious to Arlon that he had not even considered that possibility.

“So, in essence, you discovered a powerful artifact that could potentially solve the issue of the entire Galaxy being destroyed,” H began to berate the commander. “And then you decided to sacrifice one of the smartest men in the Galaxy, who knew how to use that resource, then said ‘welp, that sucks’ and  _left_.”

“We didn’t really have any other options,” Rodriguez told cyborg.

“Well, you’re useless,” H responded.

Arlon saw the cyborg raise his hands, charging up electricity for an attack, and quickly jumped into action. The mercenary stepped in front of H, blocking his shot on Hondo and Rodriguez, then forcibly shoved the cyborg’s arms down. “What the hell are you doing?!” Arlon demanded.

“They are of no use to us, therefore we do not need them.”

“But we don’t need them  _dead!_ ” Shandra shouted. “H, these are our friends!”

“How?” H turned to look at her, eyes still fierce with anger.

“Well, for starters,” Arlon said. “They’re the only ones who know where that bloody thing-”

“ _Used to be_ ,” H cut him off, his rage growing.

“And what does attacking them solve?” Arlon spat back, grabbing H violently by his lab coat. “Nothing! That only serves to make us more enemies, something we can’t afford right now! Just because the artifact may have been moved, doesn’t mean they don’t have information that could lead us to it.”

“Fine,” H responded, his voice still bitter. “It’s better than no lead at all.”

Seeing the cyborg cut the charge flowing to his weapons, Arlon released his grip. He turned back to see Rodriguez with his rifle firmly pointed right between H’s eyes.

“Is there something you should tell us?” Shandra asked the commander.

Rodriguez hesitated for a moment, then lowered his weapon. “Sorry,” he said. “We’ve all just been on edge. It’s been rough the past few weeks.”

“I’m sure accomplishing as much as you have has made it incredibly rough,” H grumbled, his sarcasm quite apparent.

“Hey,” Rodriguez protested. It was clear to Arlon that the commander took offense to the cyborg’s words. “We’ve accomplished a lot, actually,” he continued. “We have intel feeds inside, so don’t tell me we’ve been doing  _nothing_.”

“Inside what?” Alex asked.

“Well, we’ve been on the run from Mr. Silver for the past few weeks,” Hondo explained. “We’ve had numerous encounters.”

“So for all we know, his men could be on their way as we speak?” Arlon asked. The Red Suns leader had a feeling he knew where this was going.

“Yes,” the smuggler answered. “But we’ve done what we could to turn their hunt to our advantage.”

“Good on you, mate,” Arlon said. “What have you managed to accomplish so far? What do we have to work with here?”

Before Hondo got the chance to answer, the holotable began flashing. He hit a button, and the display shifted to show a very advanced looking cruiser dropping out of warp space near the station. “Ah, it looks like our  _friends_ have arrived,” the smuggler said wryly. “Right on schedule.”

“I see they sent the big one again,” Rodriguez commented, taking a glance out the viewport. “Excellent.”

“I take it you already have some kind of plan?” Arlon asked, a smirk appearing on his face.

“We’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a week,” the commander explained. “That’s the main ship, the one that’s coordinating the search.”

“So, why not blow it up?” Alex asked.

“We have reason to believe there is vital information on board,” Rodriguez informed the girl. “And it is very likely that our missing operative is being held there as well. Our plan was to send in a small infiltration team, but-”

Suddenly, the ship hailed the station. Noticing the slightly confused expressions on both Hondo and Rodriguez’s faces, Arlon hit a button on the holotable, accepting the call. The holotable immediately projected out a viewscreen displaying Shandra’s image. “Hey guys,” she said. “I got tired of waiting.”

Both Rodriguez and Hondo looked at where Shandra had been standing moments ago, then back to the screen, their expressions looking even more confused. Arlon couldn’t help but chuckle.

“That’s one way of... rapid tactical entry,” the commander muttered to himself.

“Shandra?” Alex called out in surprise. “What are you doing?!” The girl seemed quite concerned.

“I’m infiltrating their ship where they can’t defend it,” Shandra replied nonchalantly. “What does it look like?”

“A solid plan, luv, but next time, let us know before you make an impulsive decision like that,” Arlon told her.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the blue-haired girl replied. “But right now, let’s worry about finding a way to get you guys over here.”

“I guess you guys are the infiltration team, then,” Rodriguez said. “We’ll draw their fire while you sneak aboard.”

“I can open the hangar from here,” Shandra said. “And maybe you can fly across in an escape pod or something.”

“We have just the thing,” Hondo spoke up.

* * *

“It’s a little cramped for four people, but you’ll manage.” Hondo stood in front of an escape pod sitting in the station’s hangar. Alex could only guess it was what the smuggler and Rodriguez had used to escape their previous mission, the one Gilgamesh hadn’t come back from.

“I’ve flown under worse conditions,” Arlon said as he climbed in.

Alex simply shrugged, then followed the mercenary. Once the rest of the  _Helix_  crew joined them, Rodriguez closed the hatch. Alex heard a few raps against the side of the pod before it was propelled forward through the hangar shield into the vacuum of space.

“We should have left a bomb behind to kill those idiots,” H said as the escape pod drifted toward its target.

“What is  _wrong_ with you?” Alex asked, even though she knew that there were far too many things wrong with the cyborg to list in the short amount of time it would take to reach the ship.

“Just let it go, mate,” Arlon said. “We can’t just go around killing our allies, especially when we can still get some use out of them.”

“But that is exactly my point,” H countered. “They’re not going to be useful, so we should just kill them.”

“You obviously have much to learn about how this galaxy works,” Arlon responded.

“Alright, guys, you should be all clear.” Alex was relieved to hear Shandra’s voice sound over the comms, preventing the argument from continuing. She wasn’t sure how much more of H’s crap she could take. The girl gazed out the viewport to see the hangar door on Mr. Silver’s ship slide open. “I’ve caused a distraction on the opposite end of the ship, so the hangar should be empty.”

Laser fire flew around the escape pod as it neared the cruiser. The ship was bombarding the station with lasers and missiles in an attempt to disable its weapons. Thanks to Arlon’s adept flying, the pod narrowly avoided a missile just before it reached the hangar.

“We’ve landed,” Arlon announced over the comms as the pod ground to a halt.

“Closing the door now,” Shandra responded.

Once the hangar door sealed, the crew exited the escape pod. Glad to be out of the cramped quarters, Alex stretched out, then gazed around at her surroundings. The area appeared to be devoid of any enemy presence. _I guess Shandra’s distraction worked_ , she thought.

“Keep your guard up,” Arlon instructed the  _Helix_  crew as he stepped out of the escape pod. “Get your Pokemon and weapons ready. Shandra, send us a map of the ship if you can find one, then keep looking for what we came here to find. We’ll head for the brig first and see if we can’t find that missing operative.”

“Got it,” Shandra responded. “The system architecture is very secure, but I patched a map together for you using the security feeds. I’m uploading it to you now. I’ve marked the brig for you.”

“Thanks, luv,” Arlon said. He then turned to the crew. “Alright, let’s get moving.”

Following Arlon’s lead, the  _Helix_ crew moved through a series of corridors until they come to an intersection of several hallways. “Hold on, I’m seeing someone with my x-ray vision,” H warned.

“Where?” Dmitri asked.

“Third hallway on the right,” the cyborg answered.

“There’s no camera for that hall,” Shandra informed them over the comms.

“No need,” H told her. “We’ll just take him down. #1, go!” The cyborg fired a massive blast of electricity at his Rhyhorn, who then proceeded to charge forward, sparks flying off of him as he approached the intersection.

A cybernetic man slowly walked around the corner, and the charging Rhyhorn plowed right into him. In one fluid motion, the man slid over the top of the Pokemon, avoiding the brunt of the attack, then landed on his feet, seeming to absorb the electricity in the process. He brushed himself off, then gazed down the corridor at the crew.

_What?_  Alex thought in confusion, not at the man’s actions, but his appearance. The resemblance was unmistakable. The sharp blue eyes and spiky blond hair. It was H… but  _not_.

Then he spoke with an all too familiar voice, although the tone was quite different. “Well, this is awkward.”

Alex looked back at H, then back to the man, then back to H once more, her confusion growing. It seemed that H was confused as well. Alex saw his jaw drop, then a single sound escaped his mouth. “ _Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh._ ”

“Is that…?” Alex heard Shandra ask over the commlink. “But… what?”

“Who the bloody hell are you?” Arlon addressed the man.

The man’s lips formed into a slight smirk at the question. “I am Experiment #1749XQ221-I, but you may simply call me ‘I.’”

“So, you must be another of Armstrong’s clones,” Arlon said.

“And you must be that traitor Mr. Silver’s been toying with.” I pulled out a Pokeball, and looked at it for a brief moment before returning his focus to the crew.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” Arlon asked.

“I think we both know the answer to that.”

“So you work for that bastard then?”

“I suppose you could say that. This  _is_ my ship. So, I think the real question here is, why are  _you_ here? This isn’t your ship. I don’t remember inviting you.” He tossed the Pokeball up and down as he spoke. “So, why  _are_ you here?”

“Well, mate,” Arlon said, a slight smirk forming on his face. “That’s for you to find out.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. I’d expect nothing less from  _you_.”

As the two continued to exchange words, thoughts raced through Alex’s mind.  _There’s a second H? And he’s evil? We need to stop him._  The girl decided that she had heard enough. Someone needed to do something. “No more talking!” she finally shouted. “Lumiera! Inferno!” Alex’s Chandelure floated forward and unleashed a massive surge of flames at the cyborg, completely engulfing him.

As the flames roared around him, I simply raised a hand, a glow emanating out from the palm. The flames began to sparkle strangely, then they glitched out of existence.  _What the hell?_

“Oh, this?” I asked. Alex was taken aback for a second. It was like he had read her thoughts. But then I turned to look directly at the nearest security camera. He was addressing Shandra; he knew she was there. That thought was terrifying to Alex. “You like it?” I continued. “I picked it up from some residue in Geneva. I believe...  _you_  had something to do with that, actually,” he added tauntingly.

I tossed his Pokeball out, releasing a heavily augmented Rhyperior. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to,” he said as he caught the ball. With that, he turned and began walking down the hallway. “Omega, finish them.” The blast doors slid shut behind him, leaving his Pokemon to deal with Arlon and the  _Helix_ crew.

I’s Rhyperior took a step toward H’s Rhyhorn, firing up its drills as it approached. Gaining momentum, the large Pokemon charged through its pre-evolved form. Luckily, the durable rock Pokemon managed to stand up to the powerful hit. Alex watched H quickly leap to action, pulling out his Pokeball cannon. The cyborg loaded up a pester ball and fired it at Omega, burning the Rhyperior right through its rocky hide and armor plating.

As the Rhyperior advanced, Alex locked eyes with it, giving the Pokemon a sad look with a baby-doll expression, causing it to hesitate momentarily. Arlon quickly seized the opportunity the girl provided, and unloaded on the Rhyperior with his pistols.

“Wilhelm, Shadow Ball!” Dmitri commanded his Haunter while Arlon had it suppressed. The ghostly Pokemon built up a ball of shadowy energy and lobbed it at Omega, dealing another hit against it. Dmitri then attempted to follow up with an attack of his own, but it failed to connect.

“Ironhide, use Iron Tail!” Arlon shouted to his Aggron as he continued his barrage of laser fire. The armored Pokemon charged forward, and swiped at I’s Rhyperior with his powerful tail, dealing a decisive blow. The Pokemon stumbled for a second before regaining its footing.

“Guys, I’m trying to get to you,” Shandra’s voice sounded over the commlink. “It’s gonna take me a while to get through the mainframe. If you need me, you’re just going to have to wait a little while longer. I’m going as fast as I can.”

“We can hold our own here,” Arlon responded “Keep looking for that data!”

“Alright. Good luck.”

* * *

From inside the ship’s network, Shandra monitored her friends’ battle against I’s Rhyperior with bated breath through the security feed while she continued her hunt for whatever data on the Eye of Aether was contained on the ship. Unfortunately, from her current location in the ship’s systems, Shandra could only access the security cameras and mechanical functions. She considered finding a way to jump to whatever servers the data might be stored on, but she didn’t even know where to look for them as Hondo and Rodriguez hadn’t exactly specified what she was looking for. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t want to lose access to the security cameras in case her friends needed help.

Turning her attention away from the data stream and back to the security feed, Shandra assessed how the others were doing. Alex had released Leviathan, whose storm clouds were now somewhat obscuring Shandra’s view, but she was still able to see what was going on. She watched as I’s Rhyperior charged right into the middle of everyone and stomped down hard. The feed filled with static for a moment as the whole ship rumbled from the impact.

When the static cleared, Shandra got a pretty good view of the corridor, as the shockwave had temporarily dispersed the vapour in the air. Several of the Pokemon looked pretty beat up, including Leviathan, but they all still seemed to be doing a good job at keeping the Rhyperior at bay. Feeling good about her friends’ chances, Shandra shifted her focus back to the data stream.

_Damn it, there’s nothing here_ , Shandra thought as she scanned through the information flowing past her. Of course, it was something, just not anything useful. It was all just signals keeping the ship’s systems running.

Shandra looked back to the security feed to see Arlon’s Aggron pinning the Rhyperior to the wall. Then, something unexpected happened. I’s Pokemon shoved the Aggron back, then vanished from sight. “It’s got some kind of cloaking device!” she heard H shout. They all began looking around for the Rhyperior, hoping to anticipate where it might reappear.

They didn’t need to wait long, as a moment later, the Rhyperior reappeared in the center of the action and unleashed another powerful quake, obscuring Shandra’s view with static once more. The feed cleared up just in time for her to see Arlon slam into a wall and Leviathan collapse to the floor.

_C’mon, you can do it guys_ , Shandra thought as she watched Alex recall her fainted Pokemon and send out her Lucario. This was getting a bit rough for her liking, but she had faith in her friends. They continued their barrage of attacks, but the Rhyperior only seemed to be getting pissed off.

After Alex’s Lucario landed a powerful Focus Blast on the Rhyperior, the enraged Pokemon set its sights on the Sinai girl. The rocket thrusters on its back flared to life, and it flew through the air directly at her, completely surrounded in flames.  _No!_  Thoughts raced through Shandra’s mind. She had to get there; she had to save Alex.

“ _Anubis!_ ” Alex’s scream sounded over the feed. Shandra watched as the girl’s Lucario stepped in front of her, paws held out to counter the charging Rhyperior. Anubis fought through the searing flames and redirected the charging Pokemon’s momentum, hurling it over Alex’s head into the hallway behind her. The Lucario then collapsed into Alex’s arms.

Shandra breathed a sigh of relief.  _Thank God,_  she thought. She was glad Alex was safe, but was saddened that her Pokemon had been severely hurt.

After a brief respite to catch their bearings, during which Shandra began looking for a way to jump to another part of the ship’s network, the team continued onward to the brig. Seeing no dangers along the remainder of their route, Shandra began scanning through the security feeds to locate I, having determined that she couldn’t really access any other systems at the moment.  _Where did he go?_  she asked herself, not finding him anywhere. She didn’t have to wait long for an answer to her question; from her position in the network, Shandra was suddenly notified of an escape pod launch. “I seems to have abandoned ship,” she relayed to the others. Privately, she cursed herself for not keeping an eye on the cyborg.

“Damn,” Arlon responded. “I’m sure we’ll be hearing from that bastard again soon, but never mind that now. We’ve arrived at the brig.”

Shandra brought up a security feed of the brig to see her friends stepping through the door. With Arlon in front, they approached a cell across the room. Not being able to see the interior of the cell, Shandra changed her view to a different camera. From this new angle, Shandra saw a young woman imprisoned behind an energy shield. She was sitting on the floor, seeming extremely  _bored_. She looked up at Arlon, Alex, Dmitri, and H as they approached, but said nothing.

_I wonder if she’s Hondo’s missing operative_ , Shandra thought as she observed the scene.  _One way to find out_. She captured the image on the security feed and transmitted it to the smuggler back on the station. “Hondo, is this who you’re looking for?” Shandra asked over the channel with the station she had kept open.

“Ha, she made it!” the smuggler responded. “She’s alive after all.”

_I guess that’s a yes_. “That’s who we’re looking for,” Shandra relayed to her friends.

“Got it,” Arlon acknowledged.

Over the security feed, Shandra watched H step forward. It was hard to tell from the particular camera angle, but for a brief moment Shandra thought she saw a confused look appear on the young woman’s face. “Do you happen to know two fools by the name of Aarn Hondo and Samuel Rodriguez?” the cyborg asked.

“Yes,” the young woman responded.

“They apparently need you,” H continued. “Hopefully it will help them  _improve_ their current condition. Come on, we’re getting you out of here. Don’t waste anybody’s time by staying.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t, but we are opening the door, and we aren’t pointing guns at you.”

“He’s got a point, luv,” Arlon agreed, deactivating the energy shield sealing the cell as he spoke. “And if you’re worried about him looking like that other fellow running around, there’s no need for that. Now let’s get moving here.”

As the mercenary spoke, Shandra’s view went fuzzy for a moment as the ship was struck with a salvo from the station’s heavy cannons.

“Well, clearly he’s not the same individual,” the girl commented as she stepped out of the cell, noting H’s distinct augmentations.

“ _Superior being_ ,” H corrected her.

Shandra sighed.

The girl gave the cyborg another curious glance before continuing on. “Judging from the sounds of battle outside, and your mention of my former teammates, I can assume that you are...  _probably_ friends.”

“You’re welcome to stay in this cell,” H told her. “But you’re probably in more trouble there than following the random people who opened it.”

“True enough,” she agreed. “Now, I just need my things.” With that, the young woman walked over to a nearby security box, then hacked its lock open with ease. “I’m Meta, by the way,” she said as she pulled a Pokedex out of the box. She fiddled around with it for a few seconds, then shoved it in her pocket. “Who are you?”

“The name’s Arlon, luv,” Arlon introduced himself. “And this is Alex, Dmitri, and-”

“And I am Experiment #1749XQR5Z-H,” H interrupted the mercenary.

“We just call him H,” Dmitri added.

“I see,” Meta said, once more eyeing H curiously. She then turned her attention back to the box. She pulled out some Pokeballs, which she clipped to her belt, then lifted a small bag out and slung it over her shoulder. “So, how about we get out of here?”

“We still need to get that information we came here for,” Alex told the young woman.

“Can you be a bit more specific?” Meta asked as she began fiddling with her Pokedex again. “If you want my help, I need specifics. What kind of information are we talking here?”

“I don’t know,” Alex answered. “Rodriguez only said ‘vital information.’”

“ _Of course_  he did,” Meta responded dryly. “Do you have him on the line now? Tell him to put Hondo on the line because he’s an idiot, and… well, don’t tell him I said that.”

“Hondo, you there?” Shandra asked over the channel with the station.

“Yes, what is it?” the smuggler’s voice responded. “Things are getting a bit  _heated_ over here so make it quick.”

“It just occurred to us that Rodriguez neglected to mention what sort of information we’re looking for here.”

“Routes, base locations, that sort of thing. We need to know where they took the Eye.”

“Got it.” Shandra relayed the information to her friends, who in turn relayed it to Meta.

“Then we want the communications center,” Meta said, scanning her Pokedex.

“And where’s that?” Alex asked.

“This way.”

* * *

With a sense of urgency, the infiltration team followed Meta through several long, empty corridors toward the communications center.  _Where the hell is everybody?_  Alex wondered as they pressed on, noticing the distinct lack of crew. For a ship of this size, it was surprisingly empty. Something about that gave Alex the creeps. Or maybe it was just because of I.  _One H is bad enough… Hopefully evil H can’t control normal H somehow._  Alex shuddered, but she remained focused. There were more important things to worry about at the moment.

“This is it,” Meta announced, stopping outside a door labeled  _Communications_. She opened the door and led the others inside. Alex watched as Meta effortlessly hacked in with her Pokedex and began to do her thing. “So, you didn’t say exactly what locations you- ah, fuck it, I’ll just grab everything.”

“Damn, she’s good,” Shandra’s voice sounded over the comms a few moments later.

“Hey, don’t get any ideas,” Alex replied.

“Don’t worry,” Shandra assured her. “I know a good thing when I’ve got one.”

“Alright, that should do it,” Meta said, slipping her Pokedex back into her pocket.

“Done already?’ Arlon asked. “That’s impressive.”

“I’m good at what I do,” Meta said matter-of-factly. “Now let’s get out of here. I  _assume_ you have a way off this ship.”

“Who do you take us for, luv?” Arlon asked. “Of course we do. In the hangar. Let’s move.”

As the team made their way back to the hangar, Shandra’s voice sounded over the comms. “Guys, Hondo says he thinks the station’s been sabotaged, so they’re pulling out. He says he’ll contact us later. ”

“Got it,” Arlon responded. “Let’s get back to the  _Helix_.”

“Alright, I’ll hail Minerva and let her know. Alex, I’m jumping into your Pokedex now. That way you can all fit in the escape pod.”

A few moments later, the team arrived back in the hangar.“Well this’ll be fun,” Arlon commented as they approached the escape pod. He then climbed in and began getting ready for takeoff.

“I don’t think we’re all going to fit in here,” Meta observed, peering into the confined cabin.

“Nonsense!” H declared. He magnetized himself to the ceiling of the pod, freeing up space for the others.

Alex followed the cyborg aboard, then looked around for a suitable space to squish herself into. Being quite flexible, the girl was able to contort herself to fit in a tight corner. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but she didn’t really have a choice.  _At least we won’t be in here long_.

“See, there is plenty of room!” H declared from his spot on the ceiling. Meta sighed, then climbed aboard with Dmitri just behind. The two crammed themselves into the remaining space while Arlon fired up the engines.

From her contorted position, Alex was able to see the hangar doors slide open through the viewport. Laser fire still flew as the ship bombarded the now-defenseless station, but Arlon was able to navigate the small pod out of harm’s way.

“Someone’s leg is in my face,” Meta commented as the pod continued to drift away from the battle, her voice somewhat muffled. Alex could feel her rubbing up against the side of her shin.

“Well,  _your_ face is in  _my_ leg,” the girl retorted.

“Hmm. Well, at least your feet don’t smell…  _too_  bad.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Alex responded as  _Helix_  swept in, allowing Arlon to fly the pod into the cargo bay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a long time since I’ve finished anything, so it’s nice to finally get this posted! I actually started work on it just after the last Blueshift chapter, writing that opening scene, but then work on it stagnated. The opening bit is pretty straightforward, just resolving the end of the previous chapter, but it isn’t that different from the original aside from Arlon being there instead of Morgan and a few minor detail changes. Where I got stuck was in the next scene since I really wasn’t sure how to handle the interaction without Morgan being there. Having her yell at Hondo and Rodriguez was a great way to open the scene in the original, but that wasn’t an option here. Eventually, I figured something out and it all came together. Overall, the scene wasn’t that different aside from a few key detail changes. The same can be said for basically the entirety of the chapter. The contents are still very important to the flow of the story as a whole so they needed to be here. Given that it wasn’t going to deviate much, I took the opportunity to play around with different character perspectives and worked on writing things a bit more clearly to make it all float better. The scene where I (the character, not me) showed up in particular flowed a lot better not being artificially split between Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of Volume 3 due to the unfortunate timing of needing to end a session early. It was also fun to toy around with different battle descriptions by showing half the fight from Shandra’s perspective via security feed. Additionally, after I had finished the bulk of the writing I realized that I needed to account for everything being pushed back a week later by Morgan’s death. Since before now Hondo and Rodriguez’s story had been independent of Shandra’s all the changes caused by the gender change hadn’t affected it. That meant that I’s ship still would have attacked the station already. The easy fix there was to just leave a few subtle hints that it was actually a different station and they’d just been on the run for an extra week. From here, though, the deviation is gonna start happening with basically every chapter.


	13. Trust

Shandra waited patiently as the escape pod slid to a halt in the _Helix_ ’s cargo hold. She was eager to return to her physical form, but there wasn’t any room until her crewmates exited the cramped quarters of the pod, which was definitely not meant to hold so many people. She was glad, at least, that the architecture of Alex’s Pokedex was more comfortable than the awkward positions the others contorted themselves into in order to fit in the escape pod.

Once the pod came to a standstill, Shandra’s crewmates began the process of vacating the cramped vehicle. After several minutes of concerted effort, they eventually managed to get themselves out, finally allowing Shandra to return to the physical realm.

As soon as Shandra jumped out of Alex’s Pokedex, she was met with a confused, yet intrigued look from Meta. “Weren’t there only five of us in there?” the hacker asked.

“Nobody said we were the most normal batch of rescuers,” H told her in response.

Shandra hesitated a moment before giving her own answer. She wasn’t sure how much she wanted to tell Meta. _Ah, what the hell? She seems trustworthy enough_ , she eventually decided. “This might come as a shock, but I’m able to go inside computers,” she explained to Meta.

The hacker responded with a look that Shandra could only describe as envious. “And _how_ do you do this?” she asked.

“You see, it’s kind of hard to explain,” Shandra told her. _Here goes nothing_. “Partly, because I’m an AI.”

“ _Really?_ ” Meta asked. She seemed _very_ interested now. “ _Fascinating_. And you can go inside machines?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Any computer?”

“So far, that I’ve encountered, yes.”

“Pokedex,” Meta continued. Shandra noted that she seemed to be thinking aloud more than asking her about her capabilities. “Ship mainframes. Cybernetic augmentations.”

“Haven’t tried that,” Shandra interrupted. “And, honestly, there’s nobody here that I would be willing to try that with.” That wasn’t _entirely_ true. Alex was the only one she would be willing to try something like that with, but she didn’t have any augmentations, and Shandra knew that there was no way she would ever want to get any. At the very least, however, that level of trust did exist between them, unlike with those on the _Helix_ who _did_ have augmentations.

“Alright. You’re not into that. I get it,” Meta said. “Are you even _into that_ sort of thing?” Shandra wasn’t entirely sure what she was talking about.

“Hey, back off,” Alex suddenly interrupted before Shandra got the chance to say anything. The girl grabbed onto Shandra and gave Meta a mean stare.

The hacker simply rolled her eyes. “Oh, _relax_ ,” she said. “I’m not into girls.”

Shandra put her arm around Alex, as she realized what was going on. “And besides,” she said, leaning her head against Alex’s. “I told you, we have a good thing going here. I’m not gonna ruin it.”

Shandra felt the girl relax in her arms. “Good,” Alex said, the jealous tone in her voice now absent. She leaned in close and planted a kiss on Shandra’s cheek.

“So, uh, now that that’s over with,” Meta said. She paused and looked around for a moment. “This is a pretty nice ship you’ve got here. Who wants to give me the tour?”

“Now hold on just a minute, luv,” Arlon said as he walked out of the escape pod. “You were in enemy captivity for well over a month. You could be compromised for all we know.”

“That _is_ a fair point,” Meta conceded. “And you _are_ right to be precautious. I know _I_ would be if I were in your position, but the best I can offer is a promise. I’m not up to anything.”

Shandra thought it over for a moment. Meta had been helpful so far, and she hadn’t done anything to make her suspicious. _What’s the harm in a little tour?_ she thought. “Well, Hondo and Rodriguez seemed to hold you in high regard,” Shandra told the hacker. “So I don’t see a reason not to trust you.” She then looked over at Arlon for confirmation.

“Your ship, your rules,” the Red Suns’ leader said. “But, if it’s all the same with you, I’d like to keep an eye on her.”

“That’s fine with me,” Shandra agreed. She looked back at Meta.

“That’s a fair request,” she said. “So, who wants to show me around?”

* * *

Arlon watched Meta intently as the two ascended the stairs to the _Helix_ ’s upper deck, accompanied by Shandra and Alex. It was hard to get a read on the hacker, and that made him trust her even less. It was bad enough that she kept her identity hidden, and that Hondo announced that he suspected the station had been sabotaged shortly after they had released her, but the fact that it was almost impossible to tell what she was thinking was the worst part. Until proven otherwise, the Red Suns’ leader would view her as a potential threat. There was no other option; he had enough experience with Mr. Silver and his agents, such as I, that he knew he couldn’t afford to take any chances.

“So, this is the bridge,” Shandra said as she lead the group to the front of the ship. “And that’s Minerva, our pilot.”

“Hi, I’m Meta,” the hacker introduced herself.

“Minerva,” the pilot responded.

“Hey, Minerva, set course for Harmonia,” Shandra told the pilot. “It’s about time we got Arlon back to his base.”

“You got it,” Minerva replied. “Harmonia’s pretty close, so it shouldn’t take very long to get there.”

“Great,” Arlon told the pilot. “Thanks, luv.”

With that business taken care of, Shandra turned to leave the bridge, but Meta plopped herself down in the co-pilot’s seat and began chatting with Minerva. Arlon leaned against the wall and listened in, just in case Meta let something slip. The hacker seemed quite interested in Minerva’s piloting skills, which struck Arlon as a little odd. Maybe she was just genuinely curious, but there was also the chance that she was fishing for information.

Eventually, the conversation took an interesting turn. It turned out that Minerva had a pretty serious blood disorder. Arlon had to admit that it was pretty impressive that she had pursued a career as a pilot despite her condition, but that condition also made her vulnerable. The fact that Meta seemed particularly interested in Minerva’s condition did nothing to help Arlon shake the feeling that the hacker was plotting something. _I’d best come up with a plan, then_ , the Red Suns’ leader though. _Just in case._

After several more minutes, Meta finally got up and headed for the door. “Shall we continue?” she asked Shandra, briefly glancing in her tour guide’s direction.

“Sure,” the blue-haired girl replied.

While the others departed, Arlon hung back. Once he was sure they were all out of earshot, the mercenary approached Minerva and tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me, luv,” he said. “I need to ask you a favor.”

* * *

After leaving the bridge, Shandra led Meta through the living quarters. Meta poked her head into the various rooms, but she seemed rather bored. “So, what about the labs?” she asked. “I’m sure they’re much more _interesting_.”

“If you call H’s stupid projects interesting, yeah,” Alex chimed in.

“Well, they certainly can’t be as boring as your bedrooms.”

“Hey, you asked for a full tour,” Shandra said with a slight laugh. “But I suppose we can head down to the labs next.”

The trio headed down to the lower level of the _Helix_ , then toward the back of the ship. Shandra pointed out the labs as they passed, but Meta didn’t seem to show much more than mild interest. They moved down the corridor, passing the Pokeball workshop, Bill’s lab, and then Armstrong’s lab before looping back around into the cargo hold.

“And everything over there is where H does … whatever it is that he does,” Shandra said as they stepped out of the corridor. She pointing to the door on the starboard side of the ship that led to H’s labs.

“We don’t really need to go there, though,” Alex added.

“I see,” Meta responded. “And what’s over there?” she asked, eyeing the matching door on the port side.

“Just my warp lab for now,” Shandra informed her. “And a couple empty rooms. Dmitri is planning on setting up a lab of his own in one of them.”

Without being prompted, Meta started heading in that direction. “Okay, I guess we’re going this way now,” Shandra said as she followed after her a few steps behind. Meta walked into the empty room adjacent to the warp lab and looked around. “Is this room in use?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Shandra told her. “Dmitri’s setting up in the next room over.”

“So it’s right between your labs, then?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Great!” Meta said enthusiastically, dropping her bag on the floor.

Shandra raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Well, I’m gonna need a room, right?”

“Aren’t you planning on rejoining Hondo and Rodriguez?”

“The rendezvous isn’t for _another week_ ,” Meta pointed out. “And I’m not gonna sleep in a hallway.”

“And what are you gonna do, luv, sleep on the bloody floor in here?” Arlon asked as he stepped into the room. “It might as well be a hallway.”

“He’s got a point,” Shandra said. “We’ve got plenty of room in the crew quarters, and if you’re only staying temporarily it’d be much easier to sleep there.”

“Well, I like being around labs and tech, personally,” Meta said.

“What, so you can sneak a look at what these guys have been working on?” Arlon asked. “We still don’t know if we can trust you yet.”

“Alright, you got me there,” Meta said. “But once you figure out that we’re on the same side, maybe you’ll let me stay down here?”

“We’ll think about it,” Shandra told her.

“I guess that’s as good an answer as I’ll get,” Meta said. “But, in the meantime, shall we continue the tour?”

“I suppose I can show you the warp lab,” Shandra told her.

Shandra led the group into the next room, and Meta began taking a look around. Shandra walked up to the small warp drive in the center of the room. “ _Oooh_ , fancy,” Meta said. Shandra observed that the hacker seemed quite interested. “Genevan model?”

“Yup,” Shandra said as she reached out her marked hand to the warp sphere the drive created. The mark began to glow as she focused her will, and the sphere began moving around the room.

“This is _fascinating_ ,” Meta reacted. “I’d love to get some data on this,” she continued, pulling out her Pokedex. “Do you mind?”

“Might I ask what sort of data you’re looking for?” Shandra asked her warily. She was fine showing Meta around, but she was apprehensive about letting the hacker, or anyone else for that matter, collect data on her like some kind of research project.

“I’ve just never seen a warp drive this small,” Meta explained herself. “I’d love to understand how it works, especially since you don’t normally see warp drives doing non-ship-related activities. I don’t think one’s ever been pushed in quite this way, at least, not that I’m aware of.”

“Right, I did have to customize it a bit after we got it,” Shandra told her. “To be quite honest, I’m not really sure what I did. I just sort of took it apart and put it back together.”

“I could help with that.” Meta glanced back at her Pokedex. “May I?”

Shandra thought about it for a second. Meta didn’t seem interested in collecting data in the way Shandra was cautious about, and she really didn’t seem to have any ulterior motives.“Sure, go ahead,” Shandra told the hacker. _What’s the worst that could happen?_

Shandra continued to play around with the Warp while Meta began recording data from the drive. Occasionally, the hacker commented on some of the readings. Using her recently acquired knowledge from Giratina, Shandra created a stable portal, just larger than her palm. _Alright, let’s see what we can do with this_. She pulled out a Pokeball and threw it through one end of the portal. The ball immediately flew out of the other portal and bounced onto the ground.

“Awesome!” Alex shouted excitedly.

“You’ve certainly come a long way, luv,” Arlon added.

“Thanks.”

Meta walked up to one of the portals and took a good look at it. “This is _Fascinating_ ,” she commented as she poked her finger through it. “Can you put one on the ceiling and one on the floor and create infinite acceleration?”

“I can try,” Shandra replied. She had to admit, she’d never thought of trying that one before. She aligned the portals as requested, then threw the Pokeball in again. The ball fell through the portal in the ceiling, right back into the one on the floor. It went through this loop continuously, gaining momentum until it reached terminal velocity. It was interesting to watch, but Shandra could feel it taxing on her.

“If you drained the air from the room, it could accelerate infinitely,” Meta commented. “And then you could try to find a way to power the drive with this. Infinite energy.”

Something within Shandra snapped at that comment, and she instantly relocated the portal in the ceiling, deliberately causing the Pokeball to fly out and smash into Meta’s face. “Ow!” the hacker shouted. Shandra heard a snicker escape from Alex’s mouth.

“What the hell?!” Meta demanded. She put a hand up to her now-bleeding brow. “What the hell?! The last I checked, infinite energy was a _good_ thing.”

“It may not actually _be_ infinite,” Shandra told her. “It takes a lot of energy, both from the warp drive and myself, to maintain something like that.”

“Well, you _didn’t_ need to hit me _in the face_. You guys are mean. I’m gonna go tour with someone _else_.” And with that, Meta turned and walked out the door.

“Not without me, you’re not!” Arlon called after her as he followed her out of the room.

Shandra simply shrugged and turned her attention back to the warp portals. She didn’t care enough to go after Meta, and besides, Arlon was keeping an eye on her. She continued to play around with her abilities while Alex sat and watched silently.

After several minutes, Alex eventually spoke up. “Hey, can I talk to you about something?” the girl asked.

Shandra powered down the warp drive and turned to face the Sinai girl. “Sure. What’s up?”

“Well … it’s about H.”

* * *

Alex stepped out of the warp lab feeling no less reassured. Ever since they had encountered I on that ship, she had been worried that H was compromised somehow. She had seen enough movies to know that a situation involving clones like this was bad news. Alex had brought her concerns to Shandra and, while she didn’t outright dismiss the notion — Shandra would never do that to her — she didn’t think H was planning on betraying the _Helix_ crew, no matter how much she might dislike him.

That had not been enough to convince Alex otherwise. Shandra had suggested that she talk with Dr. Armstrong to clear up her concerns about clones and I using mind control, so now that was where she was heading. _Hopefully Doc knows something_ , she thought as she stepped out into the cargo bay.

As Alex crossed the cargo bay toward Armstrong’s lab, she saw H slink out from the corridor leading to the back of the ship, looking rather suspicious. _What’s he up to?_ she wondered.

“Yes?” the cyborg asked, noticing the death stare Alex was giving him.

“What do you want, Murderface?” she asked in return.

“To know why _you_ have a murderface,” H answered.

“What? _You’re_ the Murderface! Not me!” Alex shouted.”You just want to kill everyone!”

“ _Eventually_.”

“But, _why?_ ”

“So that we can attain ascension. You either move forward, or get left behind.”

“You’re just as bad as the _other_ you!”

“True, I’m a lot like I in many ways,” H responded. “But, at the same time, he tried to kill you and I haven’t.”

Alex’s eye twitched with anger. “ _But you did!_ ” she shouted. “And how do we know you’re not planning on killing us all right now?!”

“Because it doesn’t benefit me yet to have you dead. As usual, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” H replied. “You should try doing some research for once.” And with a swish of his lab coat, the cyborg turned and briskly walked off.

“I _am_ doing research, you jerkface,” Alex grumbled under her breath as she watched him leave. She knew there was something weird going on, and she was determined to figure out what it was. There was just something about the way H had been acting since they escaped I’s ship that was bothering her. The idea that H might be collaborating with I was seeming more plausible by the minute. With a renewed sense of urgency, Alex hurried toward Dr. Armstrong’s lab.

“Hey, Doc,” Alex said as she walked into the room. She looked around and spotted the man sitting in a chair, holding a bottle of whisky, looking almost comically like drunken characters she had seen in movies. Armstrong started babbling about something, but she couldn’t really tell what he was saying.

 _I don’t have time for this_. “Hey, listen,” she said to the scientist, causing him to snap to some sort of attention.

“Yes, what is it?” Armstrong asked.

“Do you think I could be controlling H somehow? Like, a clone hivemind or something?”

“Hiveminds … Hmm … Interesting.” Armstrong began rambling semi-coherently, theorizing a potential hivemind society.

“ _No! No! No!_ ” Alex whined. “That’s not what I want to know!”

“Then … I’m sorry, what … were we talking about, again?”

“Is it possible that I is controlling H with, like, some clone mind power thing?” Alex asked.

“I wouldn’t say there’s any sort of link of control involved,” Armstrong replied, this time sounding _very_ coherent. “That _probably_ couldn’t happen. But they _are_ similar. They were all cut from the same cloth, after all. Who knows? I have no idea what kind of tech I has put inside his head since the last time I saw him. I cannot say for sure. Good luck!” He took a large swig from the bottle, then waved Alex out of the room.

 _Well, that wasn’t reassuring at all_ , Alex thought. Armstrong had said nothing to quell the girl’s fears. In fact, he had done the opposite. In her mind, it now seemed all too likely that I somehow had control over H or had convinced the cyborg to work with him. _I have to do something_ , she told herself.

Determined to put an end to whatever H was up to, Alex set out to find the cyborg. She didn’t have to go far, for, as she stepped out into the cargo bay once more, Alex spotted him slipping out of the corridor leading to his lab, looking just as suspicious as before. Alex unholstered her pistol and pointed it right at H. “Stop right there!”

* * *

Arlon sat in the _Helix_ security room, his feet up on the table, watching Meta fiddle around with her Pokedex. The hacker had finished looking around the ship, but Arlon still wasn’t sure about her. That meant keeping her in sight at all times. One thing was certain, though; Meta looked quite bored.

The Red Suns’ leader himself was starting to feel the boredom as well. There was a lot he’d rather be doing than babysitting, but it was necessary. “So, did you learn anything useful about I while you were imprisoned?” Arlon asked.

“Not really,” Meta answered without looking up from her Dex. “Just that he’s willing to do a lot to get what he wants.”

“What a shame. I was hoping we could learn a little more about him.”

“Well, If I knew anything else, I’d tell you.”

“Would you now? You could be working for him for all I know. Now that I think about it, it did seem a little _too_ easy to rescue you. Maybe he _wanted_ you to escape.”

Meta looked up at the Red Suns’ leader. “There’s not really anything I can do to convince you otherwise, is there?”

Arlon paused a moment to think. “Probably not, luv.”

“Well, this is going to be a fun week.” Meta put her Pokedex down for a moment to poke at the cryo-bandage on her injured forehead. “What are you gonna do, follow me around the whole time?”

“If I have to, yes.”

“How _exciting_.”

Arlon let out a slight chuckle. “Think of it this way, luv; by the end of the week — assuming you’ve got nothing to hide, that is — we’ll be best friends.”

“ _Yes_ , we’ll be the _best_ of friends.”

The hacker’s sarcasm was not lost on Arlon. “Oh, come on, it won’t be _that_ bad.”

“Whatever you say.”

Meta looked back down at her Pokedex, and the pair fell back into silence. Arlon was realizing that it was harder to get anything out of Meta than he thought it would be. She wasn’t going to do anything suspicious while he was watching her, but leaving her unsupervised was a bad idea. He needed a way to keep an eye on her from a distance.

That’s when the mercenary’s eyes fell on the security monitors. Assuming Meta hadn’t hacked them, they would work nicely. As he looked at the monitors, a sudden movement on one of them caught his eye. “What in the hell?” The monitor showed Alex pointing a gun at H in the cargo hold and shouting angrily.

“What is it?” Meta asked, turning to see what he was looking at.

Arlon stood up. “I need to go deal with this,” he said. “Just stay here,” he added as he headed for the door. “And don’t touch anything!”

The Red Suns’ leader knew he was taking a risk leaving Meta unmonitored, but he also knew it was his best chance at gauging her intentions. He just hoped his gamble paid off. _Now to figure out what the bloody hell is going on down there_ , Arlon thought as he headed for the stairs.

* * *

Shandra stood in the warp lab, playing around with the portals, seeing how far she could push them _without_ putting too much strain on herself. So far, she hadn’t made much progress. Her mind was elsewhere instead of being focused on her task. She was still thinking about her conversation with Alex. The girl had long since left to speak with Dr. Armstrong, but Shandra was still mulling over the things they had discussed.

While Alex and H had never liked each other, they had at least been able to work together as part of the same crew. They had been butting heads a bit more frequently as of late, but Shandra simply chalked that up to the stress of the last few weeks. _First the conference, then Morgan …_ Shandra felt herself tense up as she thought of her friend. _And that monster …_ The _Helix_ crew had been put in a lot of stressful situations with barely a moment to rest.

 _That’s got to be the reason_ , she told herself. H was difficult, and Shandra herself wasn’t particularly fond of him, but she didn’t think that he would turn against them. They wanted the same thing, after all: to save the Galaxy. _There’s no way he would work with I, is there?_ Alex hadn’t been so sure. The girl meant more to her than anyone else in the Galaxy, but even Shandra had to admit that her theories could be a little … out there.

Shandra sighed, then shut the warp drive down once more. She was too distracted to concentrate on her work. The blue-haired girl stepped out of the warp lab, deciding to go for a short walk. She hoped a change of scenery would help her clear her head. Shandra made her way down the corridor, then up the stairs to the upper deck. Eventually, she found her way to the bridge and was surprised to find it completely empty.

“Minerva?” Shandra called out. The bridge remained silent. _That’s odd_ , she thought. Usually the _Helix_ ’s pilot was hanging out on the bridge, even when there was no piloting to be done. Shandra approached the pilot’s seat and checked the console. The coordinates were still locked on Harmonia and the autopilot was engaged, set to orbit the planet upon arrival. _Must be taking a break_. It was true that Minerva didn’t need to be on the bridge during warp jumps. It was possible that she was simply taking a brief nap or getting something to eat.

Shandra shrugged, then plopped herself down in the pilot’s seat. _Might as well be helpful_ , she thought as she placed her hand the console. _I could use some more practice anyway_. She focused on the coordinates, trying to envision them through the Warp even though she had never been to the planet. The swirls of warp energy surrounding the _Helix_ flared up in intensity, shining a vivid purplish-blue, then distorted. A mere moment later, the ship dropped out of warp space at its destination. Shandra leaned back in the chair, satisfied with her handiwork.

“What the hell did you just do?” Shandra turned to see Meta standing in the doorway, staring at her with intense curiosity.

“Being able to enter computers isn’t the only thing I can do,” Shandra explained. She lifted her marked arm up so that Meta could see it. “A little gift from Giratina.”

“Giratina? That name sounds familiar. Think I heard something about it on the Spacenet.”

“It’s the being that controls Space — well, it _is_ Space, more accurately.”

“Just like the Eye of Aether is Time,” Shandra heard Meta mumble under her breath.

“What was that?” the blue-haired girl asked.

“Nothing,” Meta replied. “Just thinking of something.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Shandra asked. “I thought Arlon wanted to keep an eye on you,” she added, noting the mercenary’s absence.

“Oh, yeah … he said he had to take care of something. Told me to come find you since he didn’t want me wandering around or something.”

“ _Really now?_ ” Shandra asked incredulously. It didn’t seem like Arlon would just leave her like that when he was so distrustful of her.

“Yeah,” Meta said. “We were in the security room. He saw your, uh, _girlfriend_ and that H guy arguing in the cargo bay. Looked like she was pointing a gun at him.”

Shandra immediately jumped to her feet. “ _What?_ ” She knew Alex was worried about H, but she didn’t expect her to do something so rash. She needed to make sure she was okay.

Shandra raced for the door, but paused when she noticed Meta wasn’t following her. “C’mon,” she told the hacker. “I’m not leaving you alone here.”

Meta shrugged and followed the blue-haired girl off the bridge.

* * *

“I don’t believe you!” Alex screamed, having heard H’s long and complicated explanation for his suspicious activity. She wasn’t buying any of it. “If you really aren’t working for I, why are you sneaking around like this!?”

“Because none of you would ever agree to a plan like this.”

“Of course we wouldn’t! You want to give our secrets to I! You want to take someone else’s Pokemon!”

“I never said I was actually going to take Kadabra, and I’m going to give I falsified records, but I can’t do that without the actual data. ”

“Then why not tell us? You’re just lying because I found you out! You’re going to betray us to I, I know it!”

“What the bloody hell is going on here?!”

Alex looked over to see Arlon approaching. “H is working for I,” Alex told the mercenary. “He’s plotting against us.”

“Woah, woah, slow down there, luv. What are you talking about?”

“Her usual illogical conspiracies,” H said.

“Shut up!” Alex shouted at the cyborg, her gun still pointed right at him.

“Let’s all just calm down and put the weapons away,” Arlon said, pushing the girl’s arms down. “Why do you think he’s working for I?”

“ _Because he said so_ ,” Alex told the Red Suns’ leader. “He said I asked him to give him our secrets.”

Arlon cast a questioning glance at H. “Oh, did he now?”

“Well, yes,” H replied. “But that doesn’t mean I was going to. If someone tells you to shoot a pedestrian, that doesn’t mean you shot a pedestrian.”

“But you were still sneaking around the ship,” Alex pointed out. “You still collected all that data for I without telling us.”

“You did _what_ , now?” Shandra asked as she approached, with Meta not too far behind. Dmitri showed up only moments later, drawn by the commotion.

“Look, after we met I, I decided to reach out to him,” H explained. “Surprise, surprise, I wanted to know if the only other person who had survived from the lab actually wanted to do something. I don’t know what he’s up to, and I know everyone here’s not the best of friends with me, but I figured, when it comes to an apocalypse, having someone reliable is helpful when trying to combat it, and I don’t feel like I’ve mentioned enough how unstable you are due to your constantly shifting emotions. I never understand the reasoning behind any of you, and, just when I do, it seems to change. So I did what anyone would do when encountering the last of their kind: I reached out to him, and we talked. He doesn’t trust me, which makes sense; the feeling is mutual. At least it was predictable. Logical. So, I figured I’d follow up on what he’s doing, give him everything that would make it so that he would help us, without actually hurting anybody … for once.”

“What exactly did you send him?” Shandra asked.

“I’m getting to that,” H said. “He wanted four things: our nav computer, our psychic navigator, all our medical records, and, lastly, he asked for _all_ our research records for _everything_ we have done up to this point. Do you _really_ think I would give that to some random guy we just met, regardless of who he might be?! No. So, I decided the best plan was the falsify the records, _maybe_ take Kadabra out for a spin, but I wouldn’t do that without consulting Dmitri first, since he’s the only one on this ship who actually trusts me. I figured we give it over to him, and see if we can get him on our side. So stop freaking out.” The cyborg looked back at Alex with those last words. Alex stared angrily back at him.

“May I see your Pokedex?” Shandra asked, walking up to H. The cyborg readily handed it over. Shandra looked it over for a few moments, then turned to Alex. “How tall am I?” she asked the girl.

Alex opened her mind to the flow of measurements and focused on Shandra to pick out the specific number she was looking for. “1.727 meters,” she answered.

Shandra glanced down at H’s Pokedex, then turned to look at the cyborg. “This information is correct,” she said.

“That’s because I haven’t falsified it yet,” H replied.

Shandra sighed, then handed the Pokedex back. “For the love of God, please do that before you send it.”

“It’s not like I’m sending him our private emails saying ‘hey, here’s all our sensitive data,’” H responded. “That would be idiotic.”

“Wait, you don’t seriously believe him, do you?” Alex asked.

“Alex does have a point,” Arlon agreed. “We should sort this all out before _anyone_ sends _anything anywhere_.”

“Who said anything about sending?” H asked.

“Did he ask you to send the data, or _deliver_ it?” Meta asked the cyborg.

“Deliver it.”

“Right, because a simple electronic transfer wouldn’t be secure.”

“ _Exactly_. There’s no way I’m sending my research via _any_ sort of transfer like that.”

“Did he say _where_ to deliver it?”

“Yes, but at the moment … Well, I guess we have to go there anyway. I’ve got the coordinates if anyone is willing to follow me there. The only problem: if he sees anyone, he’s going to flip.”

“So, the real question is: _do you believe him?_ ” Meta asked, turning to everyone else. “And, do you believe that I won’t see through falsified records?”

“No way!”Alex shouted. She couldn’t believe any of her friends were seriously considering this.

“Whether or not H is telling the truth remains to be seen,” Arlon said. “But if I is anything like him, he’d probably expect us to give him falsified information.”

“You’re right, I might see that coming,” H agreed. “But if he would see that coming … that begs the question: why does he want our medical records? To know what our weaknesses are, perhaps.”

“I’m not so sure,” Meta chimed in. “You should always ask: ‘what do you know, and why do you think you know it?’ It sounds to me like he _already_ knows a lot about you.”

“And _that_ begs the question,” Arlon said. “Why ask for _any_ of this stuff at all?”

“It’s a trust issue,” H offered.

“Right. If I were I, I’d want to test you to see if I could trust you. To see what you would do. In this case, he wants to see if you’re willing to betray us.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” H agreed.

“There could still be some things he wants _more_ information on,” Meta suggested. “I could provide more input if I was able to get a look at the data myself.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Arlon told her. “We still don’t know enough about you either.”

“I’ll let you see mine,” H offered, holding out his Pokedex to the hacker.

“Okay,” Meta said. She took the cyborg’s Pokedex and began looking over the data it showed. “It looks to me like the _most_ interesting thing here would be your most recent augmentations.” She highlighted the technorganic modifications that Armstrong provided. “ _That’s_ something he might be interested in. That’s what _I_ would be interested in if I were him.”

“He probably only wants a few selected things, but it’s easier just to grab everything and sort through it later,” Arlon theorized.

“Right, so now we just need to go about falsifying this information,” H said.

“How do we know telling us isn’t _part_ of his plan?” Meta asked the group, glancing over at H again. Alex hadn’t even considered that possibility, and now she was even more distrustful of H; it sounded exactly like something he would do.

“So, then don’t we just need to make sure the data is falsified beforehand?” Dmitri asked.

“But he still has the real data,” Meta pointed out. “If I were him, my main concern would be: how do I get off this ship with all this stuff, _without_ you noticing? I would try covering myself with a false false plan.” The hacker paused a moment to think. “First, we need to figure out if he really _is_ planning on betraying us.”

“Of course he is,” Alex said.

“Hold on a moment,” Meta responded.”Remember, what do you know, and why do you think you know it? We have two hypotheses here. One is that H here is indeed our friend—”

“No he isn’t,” Alex cut her off.

“Let me finish,” Meta replied, sounding a bit irritated. Alex quieted down and decided to listen. “As I was saying, the first hypothesis is that H _is_ telling the truth. The second is that he’s _not_. If that is true, then the reason that he is telling us anything at all is most likely part of his plan. He has what he needs and just needs to find a way out. Can we all agree that that is the likely scenario?”

“Makes sense to me,” Arlon agreed.

“Well, in that case, we have a way to test this,” Meta said. “He says he wants to get the psychic navigator … How do we know he doesn’t already have it? He could be trying to make his escape right now.”

“We can go to the drive, and see that it’s there, and that I don’t have it,” H told her. “But that’s beside the point, because, if I have a secret objective, then I haven’t told you what it is yet. The Kadabra’s presence would prove nothing because my actual tasks may already be complete.”

“I still want to make sure my Kadabra is still there,” Dmitri said.

“Let’s go then,” Meta said.

As the group made their way to the warp drive, Alex kept an eye on H, and a firm grip on her pistol. When they arrived, Dmitri’s Kadabra was nowhere in sight. “Where is it?!” Alex demanded, raising her weapon once more.

“I have no idea,” H said defensively. “But we know it was here recently.”

“What did you do with it?!”

“I do not have it,” H told her. “Feel free to search me.”

“We don’t really have any other choice, mate,” Arlon said, approaching the cyborg. “Let’s hope for your sake that you don’t have it.”

“Be very careful with the lab coat,” H warned him. “It contains a lot of volatile explosives.”

“Well that’s certainly encouraging.” Arlon thoroughly patted H down, checking every inch of his coat. It seemed to Alex that he wasn’t finding anything. Then the mercenary tapped on the cyborg’s chest compartment containing his belly-pogo. “I’m gonna have to ask you to open up.”

H hesitated for a moment. Alex noticed a slight twitch in his eye. “ _Do it_ ,” she told the cyborg, her voice cold.

H opened the compartment, and Arlon took a look inside. “Well, well, well … what do we have here?” The Red Suns’ leader reached in and pulled out a Pokeball. He tapped the button, releasing Dmitri’s missing Pokemon. “Care to explain, mate?”

“ _H?_ ” Alex looked over to see a cold stare burning in Shandra’s eyes. “What purpose does it serve you to knowingly tell us such a blatant lie?” Shandra asked, hand reaching for her dagger.

“What purpose does it serve me to keep answering your ceaseless questions? I knew this was exactly how you would react.” The cyborg spat. “I still have what I need.”

“Damn right we’d react this way,” Arlon said, pistol already drawn and moving to surround H, who was raising his hands. In one he held his pokédex; in the other was a primed detonator, his thumb hovering over the button.

“Need I remind you of the explosives?” Meta warned. “Rapid decompression is not exactly on my to-do list!”

“Then let’s hope he can’t trigger them!” Shandra yelled, throwing her dagger at H, who deftly bent backwards to dodge out of its arc.

“You missed,” the cyborg said smugly, turning back to face Shandra. And that’s when her fist collided with his lower jaw.

Meta bolted out as soon as the brawl started, and Arlon begrudgingly ran after her, cursing under his breath.

“Ow, that hurt,” Shandra said, recoiling from her own attack as Dmitri went in to grapple H, prying the detonator from his hand. Alex reached for her Pokeballs just as it triggered and the room filled with billowing clouds of opaque smoke, violently emerging from beneath H’s lab coat. The remaining crew members coughed as the smoke faded, but H was gone, having knocked Dmitri to the ground.

“He’s not leaving yet,” Shandra said, quickly scanning the engine room. The Kadabra was still there, kneeling over its trainer and helping the Romanov up. “He doesn’t have everything he …” Shandra reached for where her Inkay’s ball would be, only to find it missing. _Fuck. “_ Run _. Now!_ ” she yelled, bolting to the door.

* * *

Minerva perked her head up at the sounds of combat just outside her door. She checked her console to see if the door was still locked, then silently thanked Arlon for the heads-up. _This is not what I signed up for_ , the pilot thought. She moved toward the furthest corner of the room, hoping that whatever was going on out there would be over soon.

* * *

 

Alex ran after Shandra, heart racing. Part of her was bitterly proud to have been right about H, but she knew that this really wasn’t the time to reflect on that particular detail. _Murderface is going to kill us all._ Her footsteps echoed through her head as she ran down the corridor. She was terrified; none of her favorite movies prepared her to actually deal with a crisis like this, but instincts gained from the past weeks and the rush of adrenaline were both powerful motivators. She entered the cargo bay and saw Shandra wrestling with H near the recently acquired escape pod.

Meta and Arlon both emerged from the hallway on the opposite side, both intensely focused on H. Shandra was on the losing side of the struggle, and soon she was flung off. H quickly crouched behind the pod to hide from the suppressing fire Arlon was now providing.

Alex tried to follow the action, focusing her pistol on H as he darted from cover to cover, but her hands were shaking too much. Suddenly, Meta yelled “Catch!” and Alex saw a Pokeball arcing over the pod. _Hey, that’s one of mine!_ She followed the arc of the ball and saw Shandra at its end, just getting off the floor. “Look out!” Alex screamed, instinctively. Shandra held out her hand and Giratina’s brand pulsed with energy as the ball disappeared from view into a small disc of warp. Following the sound of electric discharge to her right, Alex saw the other end of the portal where the ball had blindsided H, stunning him temporarily in a shower of sparks. The cyborg shrugged it off entirely, but at least it was a distraction.

 _Now’s my chance!_ Alex stared down the sights, finger on the trigger. She knew what she needed to do. She knew H needed to die or they all would, but she couldn’t make herself do it. The girl lowered her gun and fell to her knees.

Then a shot rang out. And another. Alex looked up to see Arlon walking around the pod, pointing his pistol directly at H as the cyborg’s sparking body hit the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, boy, it’s been a good while since I worked on Blueshift, but this was such a fun chapter to write. I kept putting off working on this one since I knew approaching this chapter would be difficult. There was a lot going on at once in the original, and a lot of things had to be changed to fit the direction Shane's player and I wanted to take it in. If anything, this chapter turned out even more complex than the original. The funny thing is that when I finally did sit down to work on this chapter I got it done really fast.
> 
> The first step was just taking Volume 3, Chapter 5 and pasting it into a new doc, then I cut out the parts I didn’t need anymore. Next, I pretty much tore the whole thing apart and put it back together. I moved some conversations and details around, and tweaked some parts to account for changes in the cast, and then added some new scenes while adding much more polish to the parts that were taken directly from the original. Then I handed it off to Shane's player for some polish and filling in the details I was unsure about. He got back to me real quick and the chapter was done. The chapter did end up being a bit long, though. The original was longish to begin with, but with adding more detail to existing parts, and adding new scenes entirely, it added a few more pages. There wasn’t a logical place to split it into two chapters, and any split would’ve ruined the pacing, so it was best to leave it as is. 
> 
> There was a lot of evolution in what this chapter would look like long before a single word was written. Way back in the early stages of Blueshift, I had suggested that H actually betray the party and either die or become an antagonist, but Shane's player shot it down. Fast forward to months later, when Chapter 12 got posted, he made a comment saying he wouldn’t mind if H got killed off, so I decided to go with it. I’m glad I did.
> 
> Thinking back to the original, while it was a good chapter, it failed a little bit in the actual session to be exactly what the GM wanted, which was everyone being distrustful of each other and having secret plans and whatnot. The reason for that was that some characters didn’t have the right motivations or mindset for plotting. Adding Arlon to the mix certainly fixed that, and turned this chapter into Arlon, Meta, and H all trying to out-plan everyone else, with Alex in particular taking a more active role in unraveling everything since this time her distrust of H was more founded. I had always said that Arlon would have kept a vigilant watch over Meta, and that he would have reacted more adversely to any sign of treachery from H, so I made it happen. With Meta having less freedom to complete her objectives for I, it gave H the opportunity to complete his and, combined with the fact that he had the right motivation for actually betraying the party in the form of Morgan’s suicide and the others’ ways of dealing with it, he actually pulled them off. And then it all culminated in Arlon pulling the trigger. I was thinking of having Alex do it, but she’s really not a killer at heart, and I had stated a few times back during Volume 3’s sessions for this chapter and the next that I thought there was a possibility Arlon would kill H in the right circumstances.
> 
> Anyway, enough rambling from me. This chapter opened up so much more deviation opportunities and we’re almost at the point where we can leave adapting events from the original chapters almost completely behind. Uncharted territory lies ahead, so stayed tuned!


	14. Here Comes the Boom

The  _Helix_ ’s cargo bay fell silent as H lay sparking on the floor. The heavily damaged cyborg moved slightly as he struggled to sit up, but Arlon put his foot down on his chest, pushing him back down.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this, mate,” Arlon said, aiming his pistol right at H’s forehead.

The cyborg stared right back at the the Red Suns’ leader with his glowing green eyes, arm reaching toward the bounty hunter. “Look, you can drop the act. Bravado is nice and all but we both know you aren’t actually going to—”

Arlon pulled the trigger, cutting H’s words short with a shot right between the eyes. He fired another few shots, just in case, before stepping away from the cyborg’s lifeless body.  _Now for the other one_ , the mercenary thought. Without a moment to waste, Arlon turned and pointed his pistol at Meta. The hacker slowly put her hands up, a look of resignation on her face. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your little stunt, luv,” Arlon said. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t blow your bloody brains out right now.”

“You might as well just pull the trigger,” Meta said calmly. “I’m gonna die anyway.”

_That wasn’t the answer I was expecting._

“What makes you so certain?” Shandra asked, walking over with Alex by her side.

Meta pointed to her head. “Because  _I_  put a bomb in me,” she said. “Set to explode one week from now if I don’t return to him, and if I return empty handed, he’ll blow it anyway.”

“That’s  _terrible!_ ” Alex gasped.

“ _Yup_ ,” Meta replied. Arlon detected a frustrated tone in her voice.

“Hold on a minute, luv,” the Red Suns’ leader said. “How do we know this isn’t another one of your tricks?”

“I’ve seen how you operate.” Meta glanced over at H’s lifeless body. “Believe me, I  _know_  there’s no way I can talk my way out of this one.”

“Then why mention this now?” Arlon asked. “Why not bring it up sooner? If there really  _is_  a bomb in your head, we would have been happy to take it out for you. From what I’ve seen of I, he was probably just going to kill you once he got what he wanted.”

“I was under the impression that he was looking for an …” Meta paused for a moment, seemingly searching for the right word. “An  _assistant_. I figured my odds of survival were  _higher_ if I returned to him successful than if I had to rely on someone else to remove this  _fucking thing_.” She pointed to her head again. “Not to mention the fact that I wasn’t sure if you would even stand a chance against him … but maybe I was wrong about that.” Meta glanced over at H’s body once more.

Arlon lowered his pistol. For the first time since returning to the  _Helix_ , the mercenary felt like Meta was actually telling the truth. “Alright then,” he said. “Let’s see if we can’t get that bomb out of your head. I know someone who can help.”

* * *

Arlon inhaled as he stepped off the  _Helix_ , glad to be breathing fresh air again — if the semi-polluted air of Harmonia’s industrial district could be called fresh. In any case, it was nice to be back on solid ground. Walking around the side of the ship, the Red Suns leader was greeted with the sight of Rena running over to meet him. Moments later, the two mercenaries were locked in an embrace.

“It’s about time you got back,” the Parisian sniper said.

“Something big came up, and we got a little sidetracked,” Arlon told her. “I hope you didn’t miss me  _too_ much.”

Rena laughed and playfully hit Arlon on the shoulder. “Me? Miss you? Of course not.”

Arlon simply chuckled. “Well, I trust you’ve been keeping the men in line,” the Red Sun’s leader said.

“Of course,” Rena replied. “Matthias has been working on analyzing ze data we pulled from Mr. Silver as you requested, and ze others ‘ave been mobilizing ze fleet in preparation for dealing with zat … thing.”

“Excellent,” Arlon said. “Has Matthias found anything useful yet? A way to beat that bloody thing?”

Rena’s expression turned serious. “I think zat you will want to look at what ‘e’s found so far.”

By the look on Rena’s face, Arlon got the sense that he wasn’t going to like what he saw. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” he asked.

Rena nodded.

Arlon let out a long sigh. “As if this bloody day couldn’t get any worse.”

Rena’s expression shifted to one of concern. “Did something ‘appen?”

“That’s one way to put it.” Arlon shook his head and ventured from the landing pad, motioning for Rena to follow. “Walk with me. We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

* * *

Bright, sterile lights shone in what appeared to be a  _very_  recently repurposed space, now transformed into an operating room. Meta sat on a stack of crates off to the side checking her Pokedex, and occasionally glancing around the room before making a few more keystrokes.

One of the security cameras in the hallway, separated by a wall of glass, silently powered itself down as Dr. Armstrong and several members of the Red Suns, including the large Romanov man who had been introduced as an explosives expert by the name of Kiril Zhukov, entered the room in surgical attire.

“It’s about damn time, boys,” Meta said as she slid off the crates and approached one end of the operating table.

“Sorry for wait,” Kiril said, still putting on a set of rubber gloves. “With so little time, it is hard to find experts on surgery, let alone  _brain_  surgery, who know enough about explosives or augmentation that they can help with this.”

“I didn’t know you were a surgeon,” Meta said, slightly impressed.

“I’m not.”

“ _AHEM_ ,” Armstrong interrupted. “Nevertheless, due to the nature of this surgery, We can’t risk putting you under. You will be given local anaesthetics, but you’re going to have to be awake for the entire operation.”

“I wouldn’t let you operate on me if I wasn’t awake for it. Already made that mistake.”

“Do you have any requests to pass the time? The operation is expected to take upwards of ten hours.”

Meta contemplated for a while, judging her options and her trust. “Get a screen in here and show me the surgery as it’s happening. That’ll keep me far from bored.”

“Are … Are you sure?” Kiril asked “I mean  _I’m_  not phased by it anymore, but you may get a bit… squeamish at the sight of your own…”

“Believe me, I can handle it,” Meta said, glaring at the imposing bomb expert. Without breaking eye contact, she hopped up to sit on the central operating table, and said, “Now, shall we get started?”

* * *

_Thud, thud. Thud, thu-thud, thud._

The sound of Shandra’s fists pounding against the sandbag hanging in the warp lab seemed to echo through the entire room. Not that Shandra noticed; she was far too focused on beating the bag with all her might. In her mind, she pictured that it was H. After everything the  _Helix_ crew had been through with the cyborg, she couldn’t believe H had betrayed them.

_Thu-thud. Thud, thud, thu-thu-thud._

Part of her was glad that H was gone. The cyborg had been unstable at best … and completely insane at worst. Another part of her was a bit sad. She had never been particularly fond of H, but she had to admit he had been a great asset to the team who had saved their asses on more than one occasion. Most of all, Shandra felt angry. Now, more than ever, the team needed to stand together, but it only seemed like they were tearing each other apart. And now another one of them was dead.

As she raised her fists up to strike the bag again, Shandra suddenly heard the door to the warp lab slide open. Wiping sweat from her brow, Shandra turned to see Alex entering the lab. Despite the rage she felt burning inside her, she couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her girlfriend. “Hey,” she said, walking over to hug Alex.

Returning Shandra’s embrace, the Sinai girl greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. “Are you busy?” she asked.

Shandra glanced over at the sandbag for a moment before turning back to Alex. “No,” she said. “What’s up? Shandra frowned, noticing a worried expression on Alex’s face. “Is everything alright?”

“I … well … no,” Alex said. “No, I’m not …”

“This is about H, isn’t it?”

Alex nodded. “I just don’t understand why he betrayed us,” she said.

“But you were right to suspect him. You saw something was wrong … and I didn’t believe you.”

“I know, but … I just can’t shake this feeling … My finger was on the trigger, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t kill him. I  _hated_  him, but … but …”

“But he was part of our crew?” Shandra offered.

Alex nodded again, her eyes beginning to tear up a bit. “First we lost Morgan, and then H turned on us … I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

Shandra pulled Alex into a tight hug. “I know the feeling,” she said. “And I don’t want to let anything tear this crew apart any further.”

Alex leaned her head against Shandra’s chest and squeezed her even tighter. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for being here for me.”

“Of course,” Shandra said. “I’ll always be here for you … No matter what.”

* * *

Meta watched the screen anxiously as the team of surgeons poked around inside her head, working through disarming the individual explosive nodes that had been implanted into her brain. The brain bomb I had designed was, as Kiril had put it, a nasty piece of work. With the aide of the cyber-weapon recovered from the Galactic Governance Conference, the surgical team had identified twelve separate armed triggers and their associated explosive nodes, each wired directly into specific regions of the brain, designed to blow if just one was tampered with … at least if it wasn’t done delicately. With that in mind, they had made the decision to disable the explosive device instead of flat out removing it.

So far, things had been been going smoothly …  _relatively_. There were a few minor mishaps near the beginning, such as Kiril being a little  _overzealous_  with the microlaser and nearly triggering the second node, but, for the most part, the surgical team had been doing a good job.

That didn’t mean that the situation was any less tense for Meta. Several hours into surgery, the hacker was still watching her surgeons’ moves intently. She couldn’t afford to miss a single thing. Her mind was her single most important possession, and there was no way she was going to let anyone tamper with it. Not again.

Meta was at least glad that progress was being made, however slow. By this point, she had been sitting there for a very long time, but the end was finally in sight. She watched as the eleventh node was disabled and the explosive component removed.

“This one seems to be wired to one of the regions of the brain that regulates sleep,” Dr. Armstrong observed as the surgical team moved on to the twelfth, and final, node.

“Isn’t that a bit of a design flaw?” one of the surgeons, a Genevan software and cybernetics specialist called Matthias, asked. “Couldn’t just going to sleep trigger it?”

“I can’t say specifically how I designed this bomb,” Armstrong answered. “But, knowing him, I do not believe he would design it in such a way.”

“I guess you have a point there,” Matthias said. “But, in any case, I’m sure our friend here will be able to  _sleep_  soundly knowing her brain won’t explode.”

Meta rolled her eyes. “I can still hear you, you know,” she said. She didn’t appreciate the terrible humor.

“Please, try to refrain from speaking too much,” Armstrong warned. “We don’t know what might cause this thing to go off while we are working on it.”

Meta closed her mouth and let the surgeons resume their work. She watched a pair of hands, which by this point she knew belonged to a Red Suns medic, move the ion scalpel towards the final node. He pressed the blade to the metal, but he applied too much pressure and cut deep into the node’s casing.

“Careful!” Matthias cried out in dismay. “I thought you were supposed to have steady hands.”

“I’m a field medic, not a fucking brain surgeon,” the medic growled.

Suddenly, the light on the node began flashing rapidly. “This is  _not_  good,” Armstrong said, his voice tense.

“Do not move even  _single muscle!_ ” Kiril stressed. Meta held her breath as she watched all the surgeons’ hands freeze on screen. She could feel the sweat dripping down her face.

“Nice work,” Matthias said. “You’ve killed us all.”

“I don’t know how else you expected this to go.”

“This is no time for argument,” Kiril reprimanded his subordinates. “We must deal with this quickly.”

“Mr. Zhukov here is right,” Armstrong agreed. “We don’t have much time, and I an not sure what to do. Any sudden moves could trigger the explosive.”

“Hold on a second,” Matthias said. “You said this trigger is connected a part of the brain that regulates sleep, yes?”

“Yes,” the doctor answered.

“Then why not try putting her to sleep?”

“That could kill her,” Kiril replied. “And us.”

“Well, if we just stand around talking, then we’re as good as dead anyway,” the medic countered. “What do we have to lose?”

“He’s right,” Arlon’s voice sounded over the comms from the adjacent room the others were observing from. “Do it! Dmitri, get in there!”

“Wait,  _WHAT?!”_ Meta shouted. She struggled to stay still as Dmitri entered the room. “Nononono _nononoNONONO!”_ Dmitri raised his hand to direct his psionic energy at her, and she experienced what felt like a wave washing over her.

Then everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was started shortly after the last one, but it certainly took a hell of a long time to finish it. So, yeah, H is done for. It was left kinda ambiguous at the end of the last chapter, but I think it was pretty clear where this was going. The direction this went next was based off discussions that were had about Chapter 5 and Chapter 6, as mentioned in the notes last chapter. I remember saying during the sessions that in the right circumstances Arlon would have killed H, so it was just a matter of creating those circumstances. But there was more discussion at the time about how that would have affected things. The behind the scenes plan was that if H died in that plot arc, he would take over running Meta, and DragonStorm would have had Meta decide against betraying the crew. So that’s how we wrote it here. In light of H being killed, and her being found out, she came clean about the whole bomb situation.
> 
> This really shifted a lot of things for the opening of this chapter. For one thing, the Helix didn’t go on a crash course to Harmonia without a pilot as Minerva was unharmed. So it was just a nice landing at the Red Suns’ base and no manhunt on the planet’s surface … just right to the surgery. I did take the time here to show some reactions to H’s betrayal and progress the romance between Alex and Shandra. And I threw some setup for next chapter with a brief interaction between Arlon and Rena.
> 
> As for the surgery, the team is a bit different as H is dead. I brought in Matthias from Seeing Red for the cybernetics, plus some other unnamed Red Suns. I had been thinking of introducing a medic character for them, so it made sense to do it here. It didn’t make sense to have a bunch of the same surgery scene from the original in the beginning, so I retold it through recap, referencing things that wouldn’t have changed, such as the error Kiril made early on. Telling it from Meta’s perspective made it interesting too. But there was a part where H made an error near the end, so we replaced it with a new surgeon making a new error, and since we’re not grouping chapters by session … we left it as a cliffhanger. We’re steadily leaving the canon further and further behind, so who can say what Meta’s fate shall be?


	15. The Best Laid Plans

Darkness.

It was all Meta could perceive. It was all around her, blocking out all her senses. It was a strange feeling, to say the least. One unlike anything the hacker had experienced … and she had seen some weird things over the past few months, that was for sure.

This darkness was strange, otherworldly almost. Like a dream.

 _That’s it_.

Slowly, Meta opened her eyes to find herself lying in the  _Helix_ ’s med bay. Surveying the room, she could see the ship’s medical bot standing by, and Doctor Armstrong was seated in a chair up against the wall.

“What happened?” Meta asked, causing the doctor to snap to a state of alertness.

“You are awake,” the aging Alliance scientist noted.

“How observant of you,” Meta said dryly as she sat herself up and swung her legs over the side of the edge of the medical table.

Ignoring the hacker’s comment, Armstrong summoned the crew to the med bay. “How are you feeling?” he then asked, turning back to Meta.

Meta sighed. “Did you get it out?” she asked. That was the only thing that mattered at the moment.

“All the dangerous parts, yes,” the doctor answered. “We couldn’t remove some of the actual hardware, but the explosives were disabled and removed.”

“If you don’t mind, I would like a video log of the whole procedure to review later,” Meta said as Shandra, Dmitri, and Arlon entered the room. “ _Particularly_  the part when I was asleep.”

“I believe that can be arranged,” Armstrong replied. “The video feed you were viewing during the procedure should be logged.”

“Good,” was all Meta said in response.

“So, what are we gonna do with her?” Arlon asked, glancing over at Shandra and Dmitri.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stay with you guys,” Meta spoke up, looking over at the two members of the  _Helix_  crew. “Given what I’ve seen, you’re a pretty competent lot, and I seems to be a mutual target.”

“Well then, welcome aboard,” Shandra said, extending her hand. Meta firmly gripped it, returning the gesture with pride.

* * *

“Alright, listen up,” Arlon said, glancing around at his compatriots gathered around the holotable in the  _Corsair_ ’s war room. Only his lieutenants and a few other trusted members of the Red Suns were present, along with the remaining members of the  _Helix_  crew, including their newest member, Meta. “Our true enemy has been revealed,” the mercenary continued. “If you thought Mr. Silver was bad …” Arlon trailed off as he pressed a button on the table. A choppy video feed of the fight against Mr. Silver’s abomination on the station began to play. “ _Think again_. By now, most of you have seen this …  _thing_ in action, but this is only the beginning. This monster is but the first of many.”

“There’s more of them?” Carmen, one of the Red Suns’ toughest fighters, asked incredulously.

“A lot more,” Arlon answered. “Mr. Silver’s objective is to create a bloody army of them. While I was with the  _Helix_  crew, Matthias was busy decrypting every single file we stole from that bastard.” He glanced over at his software expert as he spoke. “That lab we swept … there’s a whole bunch more.” Arlon pressed another button and the hologram shifted to display a map of the Galaxy with dozens of marked sets of coordinates. “These are all locations where they’re creating more of these things … ‘Project Mewtwo,’ they call it.”

“Wait a minute,” Meta interrupted. “Project Mewtwo? What kind of stupid name is that?”

“Don’t ask me, luv,” Arlon replied. “I certainly didn’t come up with it. In any case, what Mr. Silver’s scientists chose to call this thing is irrelevant. All that matters is that we take these other labs out of commission before we have more of these bastards flying around the Galaxy.”

“Well, then what are we waiting for?” Kiril asked. “Let’s blow them up.”

“That’s the idea, mate. We need take these labs out before they make any more of these so-called Mewtwos.” Arlon folded his arms and looked around the room again. “The problem is, we still don’t know how many other labs there are … ones we don’t know about.” The Red Suns’ leader turned back to the galactic map. “These are all the locations that we know about, but our data is incomplete, so there may be even more of these facilities.”

“Couldn’t we just find out where the others are by boarding one of these ones?” Luke asked, pointing to the map.

“Judging from the data, the entire project is compartmentalized,” Matthias answered. “It looked to me like each lab didn’t even know the others  _existed_.”

“Sounds like Mr. Silver alright,” Shandra chimed in.

“Exactly, luv,” Arlon said. “The only way to know for sure how many labs are out there would be to attack Mr. Silver with the cyber-weapon again, but the odds of success are so low it would be suicide. Taking out the labs is still the best course of action. We won’t wipe out all the Mewtwos before they’re created, but, at the very least, we’ll slow Mr. Silver’s progress and we won’t have to fight so many at once.”

“Sounds like we should mobilize our fleet right away then,” Petra said.

“I’d be inclined to agree,” Arlon told her. “But, unfortunately, these labs aren’t the only pieces on the board. There’s still the Mewtwo that’s already out there. It’s only a matter of time before it strikes. Then there’s the matter of Mr. Silver’s agent known as I, the man we encountered after fleeing the station in Sector 7. He’s a major threat … and he even convinced one of our friends to turn against us. He is also in possession of a powerful artifact known as the Eye of Aether. It would seem that it is critical to Mr. Silver’s plan, and it could be a powerful tool that we could turn to our advantage.”

“Shouldn’t we, like, call the Federation for help?” Alex spoke up. “I don’t see how we can handle this all on our own.”

“Unfortunately, we have to, luv,” Arlon told the Sinai girl. “They’ve got their hands full fighting the Supremacy. I tried speaking with Admiral Graves, but she doesn’t think Mr. Silver and these Mewtwos are a serious threat.”

“So, we’re on our own then,” Dmitri said.

“Exactly, mate,” Arlon said. “It’s going to be on us to make sure that Mr. Silver can’t see his plan through. I’ve called all our forces from across the Galaxy back here. Once the fleet is assembled, we strike and hit him right where it hurts.”

“Just how big is this fleet of yours?” Shandra asked.

The Red Suns’ leader smirked. “Oh, I think you’ll be impressed.”

* * *

“Well that was all  _very exciting_.”

Shandra frowned at Meta, detecting heavy sarcasm in the hacker’s words. “You don’t seem very impressed,” she said.

“I’m not one for standing around talking,” Meta said. “I’d prefer we go after I  _now_.”

Shandra sighed as the two, along with Alex and Dmitri, made their way back to the  _Helix_ , the light of Harmonia’s late afternoon sun shining down on them. “I agree with Arlon,” the blue-haired girl said. “I think it’s best to wait until we have all our forces assembled.”

“Fair enough,” Meta conceded. “But I’d rather be  _doing something_.”

“Well, how about we get you situated somewhere on the  _Helix_ while we wait?” Shandra suggested.

“You seemed keen on the room next to my lab; perhaps we could collaborate on something? Maybe make some sort of cyber lab hacker network thing?”

“That would be great,” Meta replied as they boarded the _Helix_. “I would like somewhere to be in my element.”

“I think I can help you with that,” Shandra said, leading the hacker toward the empty room between her warp lab and the lab Dmitri had been working on setting up. “Your stuff’s already here, and other than that the room’s not currently in use, so it’s all yours.”

“You guys have fun,” Dmitri said before continuing down the corridor toward his own lab.

“I’ve got some things to take care of too,” Alex said before leaning in to give Shandra a kiss. “But come by my room later when you’re done, okay?” she added, giving her girlfriend a wink. “I’ve got something for you.”

“Alright, I’ll see you later,” Shandra said, giving Alex another kiss before letting her go. Smiling, she then stepped into the empty room to see Meta pulling some very advanced looking hardware out of her bag.

“These ones were, shall we call them  _gifts_  from our  _friend_ ,” the hacker said, noticing the intrigued expression on Shandra’s face. “But I’ll need more than just this.” She pulled out her Pokedex and pressed a few buttons. “Here’s a list of what I need,” she said sending the list over to Shandra’s Dex.

Shandra briefly skimmed the list over, noting it contained several pieces of hardware she was familiar with, and several that she  _wasn’t_. She also noticed that Meta had included the cyber-weapon on the list. “I’ll … see what I can find,” Shandra told the hacker. “I’m sure the Red Suns have a lot of this stuff lying around … but I’m not so sure they’ll be willing to part with the cyber-weapon.”

Meta folded her arms. “Well, if you want this to be the best cyber-warfare suite  _ever_ , you’ll get it for me.”

“Well, come on then,” Shandra told the hacker. “Let’s go ask for it.”

* * *

The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon and Shandra and Meta walked across the landing platform towards the Red Suns’ Harmonia base. Entering the building, the pair soon located Arlon. The mercenary organization’s leader was taking a call on his Pokedex, and motioned to them with his hand the he would be with them in a moment.

“I wish I could help, but my hands are full at the moment,” Arlon told whoever was on the other end of the line.

“Look, I understand this is important to you, but I’ve got bigger things to worry about right now.”

“I get it. I  _really_  do, but I just don’t have the time.”

Arlon let out a long, heavy sigh. “Alright, tell you what. Why don’t you swing by the base tomorrow morning? No promises, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’re welcome, luv. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have something I need to take care of.” With that, Arlon hung up and slid his Pokedex back into his pocket.

“What was that about?” Shandra asked as the Genevan mercenary approached her and her new crewmate.

“Oh, nothing important,” Arlon said. “Just a favor I owe someone, but enough about that. What can I help you ladies with?”

“Meta here is setting up a cyber-warfare suite for us on the  _Helix_ ,” Shandra informed the Red Suns’ leader, casting a glance in Meta’s direction. “We were hoping you had some of the parts we need lying around here somewhere.”

“Sure, luv,” Arlon replied. “Go see Matthias in his lab aboard the  _Corsair_. I’m sure he’ll have what you need.”

“Thanks, Arlon,” Shandra said. “There was one other thing, though.”

“Oh?”

“We’d like to take the cyber-weapon too, if you don’t mind,” Shandra told the mercenary.

“Hmm,” Arlon said, stroking his facial scruff. “That’s a big request, but I suppose if anyone can make good use of that thing, it’s you.”

“ _Of course_ ,” Meta chimed in. “I’ll have you know that I’ve already thought of three-hundred-and-six  _phenomenal_  uses for it.”

Arlon laughed. “Well that’s really something, innit? Matthias has it in his lab; tell him I said you could have it.”

“Thanks,” Shandra said, turning to leave.

“Don’t mention it, luv. Let’s hope that cyber-warfare suite you’re working on can give us an edge against I.”

Meta smirked at the Red Suns’ leader. “You can count on it.”

* * *

The sun had gone down by the time Shandra returned to the  _Helix_. As luck would have it, the Red Suns’ hacker, Matthias, had everything Meta needed to set up her cyber-warfare suite, and he had even offered to help set it up. The two seemed to have everything under control, so Shandra excused herself to go see Alex.

She had to admit, she was quite curious as to what Alex wanted to give her. Knowing her girlfriend, it was probably going to be something sweet and sentimental. That was something Shandra really appreciated about Alex, and she was glad that she was part of her life.

Reaching the  _Helix_ ’s living quarters, Shandra approached Alex’s room and knocked on the door. There was no response. “It’s me,” Shandra said, knocking on the door again a bit louder.

Moments later, the door slid open, revealing Alex standing there wearing nothing but her usual purple tank top and a pair of underwear. Her long, dark hair was down, hanging loosely around her shoulders all the way down past her waist, and looked quite disheveled. Judging by the look on her face, she had just woken up.

“Hey,” Alex said, a smile on her face. “I guess I fell asleep,” she added, laughing softly as she pulled Shandra inside.

“You look, uh,  _comfortable_ ,” Shandra said. She was unsure what to make of seeing Alex in such a state of undress. Although it was likely what the girl usually slept in, processing the sight made Shandra feel  _strange_.

“More so now that you’re here,” Alex said, pressing herself up against Shandra’s body. The short girl stood up on her toes and planted a kiss on her girlfriend’s lips.

A shiver ran down Shandra’s spine as Alex slid her delicate hands along her exposed midriff, around to her back, and up underneath her top. The two had shared moments of passion together before, but this time felt different. Looking into Alex’s big brown eyes, it was almost as if she could see a fire burning in them.

“What are you—” Shandra started to say as Alex suddenly pulled her toward her bed, but she was cut short when the Sinai girl shoved her down onto it with a surprising amount of force for someone as petite as her.

“Just go with it,” Alex said as she climbed up on top of her girlfriend. “I’ve never done this with anyone before either.”

“Done what?”

Alex looked at Shandra with an almost mischievous twinkle in her eyes as she slid her hands along Shandra’s body. She stopped at her hips, and grabbed onto the waistband of her shorts.

“This.”

* * *

Dim light shone through the darkened glass of room’s viewport as Shandra lay in bed, watching Alex sleep beside her. Although she did not require sleep herself, Shandra was content to just lie there, holding the sleeping Sinai girl in her arms. She felt such a strong bond with Alex, and after last night, it was stronger than ever. Shandra now felt connected to her girlfriend on a level she could never had imagined. She certainly knew their relationship would never be the same again

After several moments, Alex began to stir. Shandra lifted her arm, which was glowing its usual purple shade, out of the way as her lover turned over to face her. Her eyelids still heavy from sleep, Alex gazed into Shandra’s eyes with a smile on her face.

“Hey there,” the Sinai girl said softly. She moved in closer and gave Shandra a kiss, playfully biting her lower lip as she pulled away.

“Hey yourself,” Shandra said, embracing Alex. “How did you sleep?”

“Great,” Alex answered, resting her head against Shandra’s shoulder. “Because you were here with me all night. You didn’t have to stay, you know.”

Shandra smiled at her girlfriend. “I know, but I wanted to.”

Alex kissed Shandra again. “That’s why you’re the best.”

* * *

It was a cool, but thankfully sunny, morning on Harmonia as Alex and Shandra walked across the landing platform toward the Red Suns’ operations building, which was nothing more than a repurposed warehouse. The rest of their crewmates were either still asleep or busy working on their various projects, so the pair had decided to check in with Arlon.

Alex was walking with a spring in her step, holding onto Shandra’s hand, their fingers intertwined. The Sinai girl could feel the warm-yet-also-cold pulsing of her girlfriend’s mark in her hand, but she had grown more than used to the sensation by now.

“It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?” Alex asked as she gazed off at the sun rising behind the tall skyscrapers in the distance.

“Sure is,” Shandra agreed, leaning her head against Alex’s as they neared their destination.

Upon entering the building, Alex couldn’t see Arlon anywhere, but she did spot Rena, who was more or less the Red Suns’ second-in-command, directing some of the men. The Parisian woman approached Alex and Shandra when she saw them.

“Hey Rena,” Shandra greeted her.

“‘Ello girls,” Rena returned the greeting, smiling politely. “‘Ow can I ‘elp you?”

“Have you seen Arlon around?” Shandra asked.

“I am afraid ‘e is busy at ze moment,” Rena informed them. “Is zere something zat you need?”

“Oh, no. Not really,” Alex told her.

“Just thought we’d check in,” Shandra elaborated.

“Oh. Alright zen. In zat case, you are welcome to wait ‘ere. Arlon should be along in a few moments.”

Shandra nodded. “Alright. Thanks.”

Rena smiled and excused herself, leaving the two girls to wait for Arlon. She had things to take care of after all.

After a good while, the pair heard the distinct sound of Arlon’s accent. The Genevan mercenary’s voice echoed from around a row of large shipping containers, engaged in conversation with a younger female voice. Something about it sounded familiar to Alex.

A moment later, she spotted the Red Suns’ leader rounding the corner, accompanied by a girl with dyed green hair. Alex felt her heart stop as she locked eyes with the girl; her face was unmistakable. Time seemed to stand still as a look of recognition appeared on her face and she opened her mouth to speak.

“Alex, is that really you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We really had you going there, didn’t we? You thought we were going to kill Meta off. That was never the plan, but we’ve gone so far off the rails so fast that you thought that it was a possibility! Anything could happen at this point, so who knows which characters are safe and which ones aren’t.
> 
> There’s some stuff preserved from the canon here still, though, just with a bit of a twist. We have a cool briefing scene, which is a new take on a similar scene from Seeing Red Part 7 that happened while the Helix crew was shopping. This time, Arlon is a bit more informed on everything and wanted to make a unified plan with everyone present. You’ll also notice that this one wasn’t interrupted by a Mewtwo destroying the planet. What could that mean? Then we have Meta and Shandra getting the cyber-warfare suite going a bit earlier than in canon. Events have been pushed around a bit by the cascading of changes brought about once PCs started dying, so it just flowed to have that happen sooner, with people being a bit more trusting of Meta and all that. I ended up reusing a lot of bits of Volume 3, Chapter 9, just put together in new ways along with original material.
> 
> And that brings us to our romance scene. I guess it’s a little “dirtier” than some of the other ones we’ve seen in Spacemon, although still PG-13, but it’s what I felt made sense for Alex and Shandra at this point in time. And it makes the following scene all the more jarring for Alex. We left it on another cliffhanger, but one of the key moments you’ve all been waiting for is about to happen!


	16. Bittersweet Reunion

“I get how important this is to you,” Arlon said as he walked with Naomi through the main warehouse of his base. “Honestly, I respect how passionate you are about this, how dedicated you are to the cause. It’s a bloody worthy one for sure, but we’re preparing for something big. Bigger than you can bloody well imagine, luv.”

Naomi frowned. “But I’m so close now. With just a few more key pieces of evidence, I can bring the whole company down.” She hit her closed fist against the palm of her other hand for effect. “I’ve worked too hard to turn back now, but I can’t do this alone and I don’t know where else to turn.”

“I wish I could do more to help,” Arlon replied. “But I can’t spare any resources.”

“And why not, exactly?” Naomi pressed the mercenary leader.

“You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you, luv.”

“Try me.”

“It’s a long story, but trust me when I say the fate of the Galaxy hangs in the balance.”

“That’s a bit grandiose, don’t ya think?” Naomi asked, folding her arms.

“There are forces at work here that you could only bloody dream of, and we’re the only ones trying to keep them from putting an end to everything.”

Naomi was about to press the Red Suns’ leader further, but it quickly became the last thing on her mind. As they turned a corner around one of the large shipping containers in the warehouse, all Naomi’s thoughts were pushed aside at the sight of  _her_.

 _Can it be?_ she thought.

After all this time, somehow here she was, right in front of Naomi.  _How? Why?_ Their eyes locked and Naomi felt overcome with emotions. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Alex, is that really you?”

The girl looked back at Naomi, seeming equally stunned to see her. They looked at each other in silence, and Naomi felt like her heart was going to burst from her chest.

“ _Naomi?_ ” the girl finally said, tugging anxiously on her ponytail. Her voice was full of shock.

That all but confirmed it. “Oh my God, it’s really you!” Naomi cried out. She ran to Alex and pulled her into a tight hug. “I can’t believe it’s you,” she said, tears beginning to pour from her eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Alex asked. She pulled back from Naomi’s embrace, allowing her to get a good look at her face. The Sinai girl’s expression looked more confused than anything.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Naomi said, wiping a tear away. “But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re both here.” She stepped forward and put her arms on Alex’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” she said, looking her right in the eye. “For everything.”

Alex smiled and placed a hand on Naomi’s arm, causing a tingle of excitement to rush through her. “You don’t need to apologize for anything,” she said. “I wasn’t being fair to you. I understand that now.”

“But I wasn’t fair to you either. I just left you there … and … I …” Naomi could feel the tears coming on again, but she held them back. “I’m so sorry, Alex. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about that night. You were the one real thing in my life, and I pushed you away … but now you’re here and … do you think we can start over?”

“I …” Alex’s anxious expression returned again and she backed away once more. She looked to her right, and that’s when Naomi finally noticed the girl standing next to her. She was tall, with an athletic build and her hair was bright electric blue. “I can’t,” Alex said, turning back to Naomi. “I’m with Shandra now.”

Naomi said nothing. She just looked down at her feet as the tears began to pour. She tried to fight them back, but there was no stopping them. Naomi was no stranger to emotional pain, but this was different. This felt like a cold hand wrapping its fingers around her heart, squeezing until it was crushed. All she could do was stand there and cry. She had dreamed of being reunited with Alex for so long, but deep down Naomi finally realized she had been kidding herself.

“I’m sorry, Naomi,” Alex said. “We can still be friends, though.”

 _This must’ve been how she felt that night_ , Naomi thought, realizing she had said the exact same thing to Alex the last time they saw each other on Vandia. Now the tables had turned. She couldn’t help but appreciate the irony.

“Naomi, I …”

 _C’mon, Naomi. Pull yourself together_. She clenched her fists and looked up at Alex. “No, I understand,” she said, sniffling slightly. “It was stupid of me to think that you wouldn’t have moved on after the way I treated you. I made my choice and I have to live with that.” She wiped away the tears, then put on a smile. “I’m just glad I finally got to say I’m sorry.”

Alex smiled back. “I forgive you.”

The two girls fell silent, neither knowing what else to say. Even though things hadn’t played out the way she wanted, Naomi felt like everything was going to be alright. Even if she couldn’t be with Alex, she could still be there for her. She owed her that much for not being there when she had needed her most.

“Bloody small Galaxy, innit?”

Naomi looked over to see Arlon walking over.

“So, what  _are_  you doing here? Alex asked.

Naomi glanced at Alex, then back to Arlon. Seeing Alex again, she had completely forgotten that she had come here for a reason. She needed help to finish her mission, but the Red Suns, it seemed, would not be able to help her. However, perhaps fate had intervened and presented her with another way.

Naomi looked back at Alex. “I need your help.”

* * *

“So let me get this straight,” Meta said, looking at the floor plan that Naomi had provided, projected on the recently purchased holotable of the  _Helix_ ’s new war room. “You want us to break into the super secure private residence of Harmonia’s slimeball senator and steal a bunch of secret files related to his under the table dealings with your asshole dad?”

“That’s … a bit blunt, but yes,” Naomi confirmed, gauging the  _Helix_ ’s crew for reactions.

“Keep in mind that Arlon has his hands full organizing the Red Suns right now,” Shandra chimed in. “If we do this, it’s just gonna be us five.”

“There are only four of us at this table,” Alex said.

Dmitri sheepishly coughed from his position at the edge of the room.

“Okay, five of us,” Alex corrected herself.

“Remind me again why we have to even go inside?” Meta asked. “Roughly one and a half of us are extremely skilled hackers, and this seems well suited to that sort of approach. I bet we could get this done without setting foot in the building.”

“Not an option — the files we need aren’t on a network,” Naomi explained. “They’re kept on a secure drive stored in a safe in Senator Summers’ home office, which requires going through several security measures to even access.”

“Okay, in that case, I’m gonna stay back and coordinate with Blue here on keeping everyone informed and in touch. See what I can do to assist from within their system,” Meta said, with a mischievous grin.

“You don’t get to call me that,” Shandra quipped back.

“Yeah, yeah.” Meta turned back to the hologram, deep in thought, seemingly identifying and analyzing every possible option and complication to the plan. “So we get inside, we grab the drive, and then …”

* * *

“And then Shandra stabbed it right in the screen-face with the cyber weapon!” Alex bashed the modded Pokeball in her hand against the lab table for effect as she recounted her tale, causing Naomi to jump slightly in her seat. “That’s when Mr. Silver revealed what he really is …” She trailed off as she recalled that moment of revelation. “An ancient AI that’s part of a cycle of creation and destruction.”

Naomi let out an audible gasp. “That … that sounds crazy, but … I believe you.”

“That’s not even the half of it,” Meta’s voice said. Alex turned her head to see the hacker, who had seemingly just appeared out of nowhere, standing next to her. “Tell her about the part with the psychopath who implanted a bomb in my brain,” the hacker said.

“ _What?_ ” Naomi asked, taken aback.

“Let’s just say people who work for Mr. Silver are bad news,” Alex explained. “Especially the scientists. Mr. Silver’s goal is to make more of the monsters that masterminded the cycle and his scientists did awful things to achieve it.” The Sinai girl could feel herself choking up at the thought of those horrific experiments.

“Alex, are you okay?” Naomi asked.

The Alliance girl placed a comforting hand on Alex’s arm, causing a shiver to run along it. Alex was reminded of the way she felt any time Naomi made physical contact with her back on Vandia and quickly shrank away. She couldn’t feel those things again. Not now.

“I’m fine,” Alex said. “It’s just … hard to talk about. You’d understand if you saw it too.” She pulled out her Pokedex and brought up the video footage of the encounter with the monster … the Mewtwo.

Alex could see the look of horror form on Naomi’s face as she watched the abomination pursue her and her friends through the station where it was created. When it was clear that she had got her point across — clear that Naomi had seen enough — Alex shut the video off. She couldn’t bear to watch it any longer than she needed too.

“That’s …  _terrifying_ ,” Naomi said after several moments of silence.

Alex nodded. “Now you know what the Red Suns are gearing up for. We can’t let Mr. Silver make any more of these things.”

Naomi sighed. “My own problems seem so insignificant compared to this,” she said. “I shouldn’t be pulling you away from this.”

“No,” Alex said, subconsciously placing a hand on Naomi’s arm to reassure her. “What you’re doing is important too. It’s amazing how you’re standing up to your dad and fighting for what’s right.”

“I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for you, Alex,” Naomi said. “You completely changed my perspective on … well,  _everything_.”

It was then that Alex noticed that they had been drifting closer together. Naomi’s face was practically touching hers. The Sinai girl felt her face flushing red as she pulled back and turned away.  _What am I doing?_  she asked herself.

“Ahem,” Meta grunted suddenly, reminding the girls she was still there. “Did you get that Pokeball done?”

“Oh, uh, right,” Alex said. She awkwardly held out her hand, which was still holding onto the Pokeball she had just finished modifying as per the hacker’s request.

“Excellent,” Meta said, grinning as she took the ball off Alex’s hands. “The plan’s coming along nicely.”

“How, exactly, is this Pokeball going to help us break in?” Naomi inquired.

“Oh, you’ll see,” the hacker replied.

“This is  _my_  mission,” Naomi said. “C’mon, Alex, tell her to answer the question.” She tapped the Sinai girl on the shoulder to get her attention.

Alex practically jumped; she hadn’t been paying attention. She was too wrapped up in the conflicting thoughts and emotions swirling around in her head. “Huh, what?” she asked, turning to Naomi. Looking into her eyes, feeling her touch, it was all too much for Alex to handle. “Sorry, I need to go take care of something,” she mumbled before darting out of the room.

* * *

Alex sat in the  _Helix_ ’s Pokeball workshop, tinkering with the case of one of her Pokeballs. Since she and her crewmates were were plotting a somewhat risky heist and would soon be taking part in the Red Suns’ coordinated efforts against Mr. Silver’s various facilities, she felt there was no better time than now to upgrade her hardware. Now that H was gone, all the Pokeball parts he had been hoarding were now exclusively hers to use. With so many materials at her disposal, Alex knew she could take her designs to the next level. She certainly needed the distraction right about now.

While Alex liked the idea of having improved Pokeballs, the product of her tinkering was not the reason why she was working on them now. This was how she worked through her thoughts and feelings, how she relieved stress, how she escaped from the complications of life. Naomi coming back into her life definitely qualified as a complication.

 _Why now?_  Alex found herself thinking. She had finally fell for someone new, finally moved on … or so she had thought. Now, all of a sudden, Naomi was back in her life and she felt more confused than ever. Alex loved Shandra; that much she knew. Seeing Naomi again, however, learning that she regretted the way things ended … That had caused all sorts of feelings to resurface — feelings she had thought were buried and gone.

_What am I supposed to do?_

Alex shook the thoughts away and returned her focus to the Pokeball in her hand. At least Pokeballs  _made sense_. She snapped the case into place, then chucked it at the wall. It deflected off, bounced to a second wall, then a third, spraying a blast of electricity out with each impact, before landing back into her outstretched hand.

“I swear, the things you can do with Pokeballs never cease to amaze me.” Alex turned to see Shandra standing in the doorway. “You make it look like magic.”

Alex smiled at the sight of her girlfriend. “Hey,” she said as Shandra walked into the room. “What’s up?”

“Just looking for you,” Shandra replied. “It’s almost time to head out. You ready?”

Alex nodded. “Mhm. I just finished upgrading the last of my Pokeball cases.”

“Alright,” Shandra said. “Arlon loaned as a skycar to use. Dmitri’s getting it loaded up right now.”

“Great,” Alex replied. “I’ll be right there … um, I just need to clean this mess up first.”

“You alright?” Shandra asked, placing a hand on Alex’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Alex answered. It wasn’t true, but what was she supposed to say? How could she tell Shandra about the conflict she was feeling? “Just got a lot on my mind, y’know?”

Shandra smiled. “I get you,” she said. “Between Mr. Silver, I, and these Mewtwo things, it’s been pretty crazy around here, huh?”

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “We haven’t been able to just relax in a long time.”

Shandra laughed. “Right? At least we have each other, though.” The blue-haired girl wrapped her arms around Alex and gave her a tight hug.

“Yeah,” Alex said quietly as she leaned her head against her girlfriend. “At least we have each other.”

They shared that lingering moment for a while before Shandra pulled away, placing her hands on Alex’s shoulders. “You ready?”

Alex smiled back, showing as much courage and determination as she could muster given the circumstances. “Let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a good while since we visited this alternate universe, so I figured it was about time we returned to it. That was one hell of a wait to resolve the cliffhanger, wasn’t it? Here we are, the first Blueshift chapter that is more or less entirely original content, with all the scenes being written from scratch instead of being adapted from canon equivalents. There was some inspiration in the reunion scene from the canon version, but it was still written from scratch.
> 
> So this chapter opens by rewinding a bit to show things from Naomi’s perspective and what she was talking to Arlon about before seeing Alex. I thought it made sense for better story flow and provide context for why she’s here. Then we come to the real meat of the scene. The reunion was something I’d been thinking about since almost the beginning of this series and I had a really developed idea for it at one point. Then I took a really long break from writing and forgot some details. As I was writing it, I began to remember things I had forgotten, but I did need to come up with some new ideas for it too. The narrative structure is the same as my original plan, though. It shows that Alex has had the same growth she had in canon, but also the new perspective she had from starting to move on and being in love with someone else. This is, of course, tough news for Naomi, but she’s a strong, mature individual and understands that her expectations were unrealistic.
> 
> Despite them not getting back together, they do end up resolving to repair their friendship because they’ve both had significant impact on each other’s lives. And Naomi knows she can rely on Alex. Which brings us to the next part of this chapter. Since we’re a bit further down the timeline than we were at the same point in canon, Naomi has had more time to work toward her goal of bringing down her father’s business, and there’s just one last thing to do to tie it all together. Enter the Helix crew helping to put together a plan to help her do that. Shane's player wrote most of the second scene, while I just provided some details in regard to the people and information involved, and it shows Meta taking a more active role on the team, which is something we’ve been looking forward too.
> 
> And then we have some future conflicts getting set up. Naomi obviously still has feelings for Alex, and now Alex is learning that she really hasn’t gotten over Naomi. So now she has some conflicted feelings to deal with. We’ll see how that plays out in time. The main goal of the third scene was to start setting up that tension, but also to provide some recap. I figured that since it’s been a while since this series had a chapter it would be helpful to remind people what’s going on, and doing that by bringing Naomi up to speed worked perfectly.
> 
> The final scene was to show Alex starting to reflect on that conflict, but I also wanted to show off some of her Pokeball skills. Around this time in the campaign in canon, Alex got some new feats that I ended up not really get to try out that I think will be able to be shown in this universe. The missions that will be happening will just work better for them. I’m excited for where this series is heading next, and hopefully the next chapter won’t be too far off.


End file.
